Ganesh Haloi Ganesh
Haloi was born in Jamalpur, Mymensingh, now in Bangladesh in 1936. He moved to
Calcutta after the Partition in 1950. The trauma of the uprooting left its mark on his
work as it did on some other painters of his generation. He graduated from the Government
College of Art and Craft in Calcutta in 1956. The next year he joined the Archaeological
Survey of India to make copies of the Ajanta murals. After seven years' involvement in the
work, Haloi returned to work in Calcutta. He taught at the Government College of Art and
Craft since 1963 till his retirement. Since 1971, he has been a 'member of the Society of
Contemporary Artists.
'The experience of Ajanta influenced Haloi profoundly. His work was
marked by lyricism. Haloi worked in many mediums and initially painted figures in
landscapes. The mood was inevitable poignant. Gradually, Haloi moved towards landscapes. A
sense of nostalgia for a lost world pervaded these paintings. Event- ally, Haloi turned to
abstract renderings of landscapes. Dots, dashes, lines became cryptic signs for trees,
water, green fields. A refreshing interlude came when Haloi did some paintings after a
tour of the ruins of Gour Pandua in north Bengal.
Haloi has done a number of commissioned mosaic murals. His stint at
Ajanta led him to study Buddhism and do research on the technique of Ajanta murals. He
published a research paper on the "Techniques of Ajanta Murals" in the journal
of Art in Industry in 1964.
Haloi lives and works in Calcutta.
