Skip to content
Search

Latest Stories

Forgotten scroll by blind Indian Painter found after 100 years

The scroll, titled ‘Scenes from Santiniketan’, which is just six inches wide, will travel in July to Santiniketan, the university town founded by Nobel Laureate Rabindranath Tagore

Forgotten scroll by blind Indian Painter found after 100 years

A 44-foot-long Japanese-style handscroll painted by the renowned Indian blind artist, Benodebehari Mukherjee, has resurfaced after almost a century and is on public display in the Indian city, of Kolkata, his birthplace, the BBC reported.

Mukherjee, born in 1904, was blind in one eye and lost his vision completely at the age of 53, following eye surgery for his other functional myopic eye.


However, he continued to create remarkable works as a landscape painter, sculptor, and muralist, becoming a defining figure in 20th-century Indian modern art.

The scroll, titled Scenes from Santiniketan, which is just six inches wide, will travel in July to Santiniketan, the university town founded by Nobel Laureate Rabindranath Tagore, where Mukherjee was a student and later a teacher.

This is the longest scroll ever created by the artist.

The scroll's journey to its current display in Kolkata involved several exchanges. It appears that Mukherjee gifted or sold the scroll to Sudhir Khastagir, an art school graduate in Santiniketan, around 1929.

Khastagir later gifted it to another artist, who eventually sold it to Rakesh Saini, an archivist and owner of an art gallery in Kolkata, six years ago.

Crafted when Mukherjee was just 20 years old, the captivating scroll features ink and watercolor paintings meticulously layered on paper.

It takes the viewer on a journey through Santiniketan, starting with a figure sitting under a tree, possibly representing the artist himself.

The scroll guides the viewer through a forest of Sal trees, changing seasons, and various scenes depicting human figures, animals, and nature. It also captures the artist's sense of solitude and isolation, expressed without self-pity or bitterness.

Mukherjee's teacher at Santiniketan, Nandalal Bose, was initially concerned about his visually impaired student but decided to let him pursue art if he showed sincerity and interest.

Mukherjee went on to become an influential artist, with notable students such as KG Subramanyan, Somnath Hore, and filmmaker Satyajit Ray.

The scroll remained hidden for nearly a century until it was acquired by Sahni, owner of Gallery Rasa in Kolkata, in 2017.

Alongside the scroll, the Kolkata exhibition also features reproductions of Mukherjee's other works, including The Khoai, Village Scenes, and Scenes in Jungle.

Owned by the Victoria & Albert Museum in London, the last artwork is beautifully painted on the semi-circular pith of a banana tree.

Some of his famous frescos are displayed at Santiniketan, showcasing his talent prior to losing his vision.

Despite his blindness, Mukherjee continued to create art until the end, producing murals, collages, and sculptures with the same artistic skill.

In a rare comment on his impaired vision, he described blindness as a new feeling, experience, and state of being.

The rediscovery of this forgotten scroll not only highlights the talent and resilience of Mukherjee but also provides an opportunity for art enthusiasts to appreciate and celebrate his contributions to Indian art.

More For You

Kanpur 1857 play

This summer, Niall Moorjani returns to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe with 'Kanpur: 1857'

Pleasance

Niall Moorjani brings colonial history to life with powerful new play 'Kanpur: 1857'

This summer, Niall Moorjani returns to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe with Kanpur: 1857, an explosive new play that fuses biting satire, history and heartfelt storytelling. Written, co-directed and performed by Moorjani, alongside fellow actor and collaborator Jonathan Oldfield, the show dives into the bloody uprising against British colonial rule in 1857 India, focusing on the brutal events in Kanpur.

At its centre is an Indian rebel, played by Moorjani, strapped to a cannon and forced to recount a version of events under the watchful eye of a British officer.

Keep ReadingShow less
Lubna Kerr Lunchbox

Scottish-Pakistani theatre-maker Lubna Kerr returns to the Edinburgh Fringe with 'Lunchbox'

Instagram/ lubnakerr

Beyond curries and cricket: Lubna Kerr’s 'Lunchbox' challenges stereotypes at Edinburgh Fringe

Acclaimed Scottish-Pakistani theatre-maker Lubna Kerr returns to the Edinburgh Fringe with Lunchbox – the final instalment of her deeply personal and widely praised ‘BOX’ trilogy, following Tickbox and Chatterbox.

Inspired by her own upbringing as a Pakistani immigrant girl in Glasgow, Lunchbox is a powerful one-woman show that tackles themes of identity, race, bullying and belonging through the eyes of two teenagers growing up on the same street but living vastly different lives. With humour, honesty and heart, Kerr brings multiple characters to life, including her younger self and a troubled classmate, as she explores whether we are shaped by our environment or capable of breaking the cycle.

Keep ReadingShow less
Tawseef Khan

Based on Khan’s lifelong proximity to immigration law

Instagram/ itsmetawseef

Tawseef Khan brings together justice and fiction in his powerful debut novel

Tawseef Khan is a qualified immigration solicitor and academic who made his literary debut with the acclaimed non-fiction book Muslim, Actually. His first novel Determination, originally published in 2024 and now available in paperback, brings his legal and creative worlds together in a powerful, emotionally rich story.

Set in a Manchester law firm, Determination follows Jamila, a 29-year-old immigration solicitor juggling frantic client calls, family expectations and her own wellbeing. Based on Khan’s lifelong proximity to immigration law, including his father starting a practice from their living room, the novel explores the human cost of a broken system with compassion, wit and clarity.

Keep ReadingShow less
Iman Qureshi’s play confronts
‘gay shame’ with solidarity

Iman Qureshi

Iman Qureshi’s play confronts ‘gay shame’ with solidarity

A NEW play looks at the cultural divisions in society, especially in the West, and shows how people can still come together and build a community even if they don’t always agree, its playwright has said.

The Ministry of Lesbian Affairs, by Iman Qureshi, follows a group of women, mostly lesbians, who come together to sing in a choir, while sharing their lives, making new friendships, experiencing love, and finding humour during their time spent together. Themes of identity, politics and personal struggles are explored in the story.

Keep ReadingShow less
20 Years of Sarkar: Amitabh Bachchan’s Defining Gangster Role

The 2005 film Sarkar explored power, loyalty, and justice in Mumbai’s underworld

India Glitz

20 years of 'Sarkar': Amitabh Bachchan’s iconic turn in a gangster epic

Dharmesh Patel

There have been many Hindi cinema projects inspired by Hollywood films, and Sarkar ranks among the finest. The brooding political crime drama, which paid tribute to the epic 1972 gangster film The Godfather, became a gritty, homegrown tale of power, loyalty and justice.

Directed by Ram Gopal Varma and set in Mumbai’s morally murky corridors of influence, the film centred on Subhash Nagre – a man feared, respected and mythologised. Played with majestic restraint by Amitabh Bachchan, the story followed Nagre’s control over the underworld, political power centres and a grey zone where justice was delivered through unofficial means. His sons, the hot-headed Vishnu (Kay Kay Menon) and the more composed Shankar (Abhishek Bachchan) – became central to this tale of betrayal, legacy and redemption.

Keep ReadingShow less