Ganesh Pyne
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Life: 1937-2013
From the archives of The Times of India
Ratnottama Sengupta
Legendary painter Ganesh Pyne dead
March 13, 2013
‘Terror, Thy Name is Tempera.’
These are Ganesh Pyne’s words. They sound ironic on the day the most reclusive Indian contemporary artist from Kolkata succumbed to his ailing heart. They sound ironic, since Pyne was synonymous with tempera. He gave life to the medium, and the medium gave him glory in the global arena. Terror, Thy Name is Tempera — Ganesh Pyne (1937-2013) wrote in one of the ‘Jottings’ exhibited by Dolly Narang in Delhi’s Village Gallery (1991). It hinted at the meticulousness of the artist who filled diaries after diaries inking his thoughts, lines, figures as he prepared himself to face a blank ‘canvas’ with a palette of earth colours. In those early years, Pyne like any other art graduate was struggling — not to sell his work but to produce the best work — in terms of tempera technique and of unique content. One day sculptor Bimal Kundu got a glimpse of this struggle when Pyne said, “I’ve spent the last three-four nights chasing an image but it just refuses to surrender to me!” A casual comment in the course of an adda, it not only made the sculptor marvel at Pyne’s dedication to his muse — it inspired him to likewise devote himself to his art. The talk took place in Basanta Cabin of 1970s where Pyne would spend his evenings chatting with — rather, listening to - poets, novelists, theatrepersons, filmmakers, artists... Susequently he’d do the same with fellow members of Society of Contemporary Artists. A quarter century later, Basanta Cabin packed up; Pyne moved from his ancestral house on Kaviraj Row in a dingy lane of north Kolkata to a posh apartment off Southern Avenue; and 20th century came to its close. It’s a different world Pyne died in on Tuesday: on his final journey from Peerless Hospital to Keoratala Crematorium, he was accompanied by Ganesh Haloi, Sunil Das, Shuvaprasanna, Samir Aich, Aditya Basak, Atin Basak, Pradip Maitra, Jaya Ganguly, Sanatan Dinda, Biswajit Saha, Manoj Sarkar of Lalit Kala Akademi, students of Rabindra Bharati... Artists, all; not a single litterateur, theatre personality, or filmmaker. ‘In the Twilight Zone’ he’d call them, says Prakash Kejriwal of Chitrakoot Gallery. Why ‘twilight’? Was it the area where myths and tales blended into the violence wracked terra firma of Naxalite years? Was it the area between life and death? Is that why any figure in his jottings was always shadowed by a dark ‘stalker’? Is that why skeletal figures, daggers, animals with fangs or claws out, boats, birds, doors and windows kept reappearing in ink and in tones?
‘He was the gentle master’ - Pritish Nandy
Ganesh Pyne was one of the most amazing painters of our time. I met him, saw his work, watercolours, tempera and incredible drawings and jottings, and was so impressed that I almost forced my friend Husain to go see his work the next time he was in Calcutta. Husain met Pyne in his charming old North Calcutta residence. He came back and told me that Ganesh was the best painter of his generation. I quoted that and it outraged his envious peers. Then came the Timeless Art exhibition — held to mark 150 years of TOI — and the first Sotheby’s auction that I put together in Mumbai. And before we knew it, Ganesh became a prized acquisition. I had many of his drawings which I gifted to friends as I never saw art as something that needed to be traded. Pyne’s craft was so meticulous and his imagination so expansive that he soon became the toast of the art world. I lost a friend but many collectors and gallery owners became hugely wealthy. He got caught in the whirlwind of fame and fortune. I still remember the quiet, gentle man I once knew who painted few but memorable works. He was the gentle master, as I had once described him in a cover story on modern Indian art: An absolute original.
