Article:
Jamini Roy: The First But Forgotten Exhibition
By Satyasri Ukil

This article is reprinted from ‘Art & Deal’, May-June, 2000.

It is proposed to record here, approximately seventy-one years after the event, the details of a one-man show where Jamini Roy presented for the first time his style of painting with folk idioms.

Except in the writings of Jogesh Chandra Bagal (Centenary Volume, p. 48) this particular exhibition of Roy fails to secure even a passing mention in the apparently erudite and informative writing of Shahid Suhrawardy, and Bishnu Dey and John Irwin (Jamini Roy) respectively. Surprisingly, in none of the subsequent literature on Roy do we find any mention of this particular exhibition. Why?

Probably due to the absence of proper, informative research Dey and Irwin had concluded their appreciation of Jamini Roy on an apologetic note. They wrote:

“Despite the lack of fresh achievement in recent years, Jamini Roy’s work nevertheless remains a marvel. He was given no aid by the atmosphere of Calcutta’s world of art… yet, in the lonely struggle, he has painted magnificent pictures and our gratitude asks us here: Could we humanly expect more”? (Jamini Roy, p. 30)

Contrary to what Dey and Irwin have to say about the artist having given “no aid by the atmosphere of Calcutta’s world of art”, the first Jamini Roy exhibition was held in 1929 at the premises of the Government School of Art, Calcutta. This was sponsored by Mukul Dey, another Indian artist and the first Indian principal of the art school.

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