Far beyond his time
Chittaprosad remained a struggling artist all his life, partly because high principles did not allow him to compromise his ideology and his selfhood and partially because he was overshadowed by various ‘isms’ in art movement. Though he was perhaps the most ‘progressive’ in terms of what the term stands for in literature,
feminism and the like: excavating and projecting the marginal voices through his art, the other ‘modern’ artists became more fashionable among collectors, due to their more attractive, familiar and easier to digest visuals and themes.
Besides the Famine series discussed in the last column, Chitta was committed to and sketched out the anti-imperialist and anti- capitalist agenda of the left. This included exposing and deriding the greed of the western powers trying to grab Asia and the Goliath-like Asian continent trying to stave them off; workers and peasants uniting to free themselves from the yolk of comprador nationalists, industrialists, colonialists and war mongers.
Despite the artist’s skill as a draughtsman and observer of the mood of the nation, one notices a naiveté informed by communist dogma mediated through personal experiences.
Of the two series that attest to this tendency the set of 30 portraits of Indian and international communist leaders such as Lenin, Stalin, Mao Zedong, Rajni Palme and the like that he presented to Communist Student Faction on Lenin Day is striking. It is obvious that the artist was drawing from photographs so the portraits look more like posters. The other is a series of Revolutionary posters very much in line with the social realism of Soviet era with themes like ‘Happy Peasants Coming Home’ and ‘Workers’ share in the prosperity of the Commune.
Even after he resigned from the Communist Party of India after nine years, disillusioned by its politics he continued to paint, sketch and print images derived from the life to people. But there is a growing intimacy and empathy with popular culture through the incorporation of myth, festivals, daily life of the people.
His role as the creator of puppets and illustrations for children’s stories as well as his amazing experimentation with colour attests to a constant search for the creative soul through his art.
— Dr Seema Bawa is an art historian, curator and critic
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