Suhas Roy
Suhas Roy is essentially a poet who writes his poems on canvas. Canvas or paper, his creations basically capture the celebration of life whether it is Radha, the eternal feminine or Landscape give his paintings a distinct serenity. His work ranges from Crow series, disaster series, Radha, to midnight blue, to Mistress of the moon to Jesus,(one of them is in the Vatican city).
Roy, who was born in Bangladesh, which he likes to call “undivided Bengal”, is still the “little village lad at heart”. He studied at the Indian College of Arts and Draftsmanship, Calcutta, and under the tutelage of Prof. S.W. Hayter at the Atelier 17 Ecole Superior Des Beaux Arts, Paris. His works have been exhibited allover the world through exhibitions like the Asian Graphic Prints Traveling Exhibition, USA, the Tokyo Print Biennale,
Japan, Contemporary Indian Art, Yugoslavia, Romania, Czechoslovakia, Hungry, and Wounds, at the Central Institute Modern Art, New Delhi, and the National Gallery of Modern Art, New Delhi. Roy used to lives and works in Santiniketan where he was the head of the Department of Painting at Kala Bhavan, Santiniketan. His craftsmanship and consummate skill that ensure that his richly romantic subjects do not touch extreme syrupy and stereotypical portrayals. Instead, their very patent beauty veers towards melancholic grace and elegance. This graceful portrayal of his subjects has much to do with his choice of refinement. The mystical flavour of his works arose from his materials – his crayons, charcoal and brush have sensitivity and interpretations of the ‘unknown’.
Roy’s forte is Radha – dark, enigmatic, beautiful Indian women who do not smile and are slightly “ethereal”. He has painted several series of female figures for the past 10 years but he is yet to tire of “beautiful belles with large demure eyes and curly tresses”.
He is one of the biggest and the most enduring names in the genre of Indian modern art. Often dubbed the father of female figurative forms.and considered to be in league with heavyweights like Maqbool Fida Husain and Manjit Bawa.