Arup Das Arup
Das, a Delhi based figurative painter, is a noted muralist. The 'text' of his
paintings has always been informed by a keen awareness or man's socio-historical being. He
has enviable skill in handling both aqueous medium and oil, and he is particularly happy
and inventive when working in mixed media. His human figuration, expressively
stylized, has something monumental about it even when painted in small format. Although
from the illusionist spatial recession, the pictorial space in his paintings interprets
the figures in terms of fine overlaps or colors in a wide range of tones. Arup Das often
suggests an advent of the Messiah and hope of redemption.
Born in West Bengal in 1927, Arup Das graduated from the Government
College of Arts and Crafts in Calcutta. Since the late fifties he has been living and
working in New Delhi. During 1960-68, he was a member of the council of the All India Fine
Arts and Crafts Society, New Delhi, and went to study in the UK on a British Council
fellowship in 1972. In 1966 he was commissioned to do a mural for the Indian Exhibition
organized by the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, in New Delhi. Next year, he did
another mural for the Indian pavilion in the 'Expo-67' in Canada. Since his first solo
show n 1954 at the All India Fine Arts and Crafts Society in New Delhi, he had 22 solo
shows in India and abroad till the year 1994, which included two shows in Japan (1992193),
London (1972) and Montreal (1 97 8). From 1961 to 1993, he participated in 24 important
groupshowsinlndiaandSaoPaolo(1961). Brazil and other Latin American countries (1965)
Rumania and Poland (1973), Yugoslavia, Brussels and Warsaw (1 974), Tehran, Budapest,
Damascus, Prague and Sofia (1979), and West Germany (1993). A recipient of the National
Award of 1957 from the Lalit Kala Akademi, he won prizes at All India Art Exhibitions of
the AIFACS in 1954,55, 56 and-the President's Silver Plaque in 1957, gold medal and awards
in All India Art Exhibitions held in Hyderabad in 1956, 57, and 58 and prize in the
Railway Exhibition organized by the Government of India in 1969. His works are in the
collections of the National Gallery of Modem Art, New Delhi, Museum of Modem Art, Punjab,
Sahitya Kala Parishad, New Delhi, All India Fine Arts and Crafts Society, New Delhi,
Punjab University, and in the private collections in New York, Warsaw, Prague, Cairo,
Russia, Japan, France, U.K., Switzerland, Canada, Australia, Hungary and Bulgaria.
