Born to a middle-class Bengali family at Haveli Kharagpur, in the Munger district of Bihar, Nandalal Bose was an Indian modern artist and pedagogue. His works demonstrate a range of styles and influences, including the Revivalism and cultural nationalism of the Bengal School, as well as the ideas of scholars such as EB Havell and Sister Nivedita. His later, more individualistic work was informed by his direct and indirect associations with influential personalities such as Rabindranath Tagore, Mahatma Gandhi, Ananda Coomaraswamy and Okakura Kakuzo, along with his documentary study of the Ajanta murals. Most of his art was made using watercolours, although he was also well known for his linocuts, a number of which were rendered on postcards that later came to acquire significant value as collectibles. Bose is also among the earliest and most influential art educators in India, having helped set up the pioneering Kala Bhavana in 1920, taking on the role of principal and teacher there, influencing students who later became eminent artists, including Ramkinkar Baij and Benode Behari Mukherjee. Bose also published his own books on art: Drish o Srishti and Shilpa Charcha.

Bose was introduced to art at a very young age. When he was a child, his mother, Kshetramoni Devi, would fashion innovative toys and dolls to keep him entertained. Nandalal, who picked up his dexterity from his mother and was especially adept at clay modelling, put his talents to use during the annual celebration of Durga Puja, which involved decorating the pandals, or floats. He moved to Calcutta in 1897 to study at the Central Collegiate School and later pursued commerce as his major at the Presidency College in 1905 upon his family’s insistence. He eventually managed to convince them — by dint of his poor performance — to let him attend the Government School of Art (now the Government College of Art and Craft), Calcutta, where he was practiced under the tutelage of Havell and Abanindranath Tagore, along with his peer Surendranath Ganguly.

His first exposure to the works of Raja Ravi Varma and Abanindranath was through the monthly Bengali magazine Probasi (or Prabasi), which began publishing in 1906. Abanindranath’s paintings from this time made a particularly strong impression on young Bose, and his own work, such as the exemplary Mahasweta, reflects this early influence. His other early watercolour paintings, such as Sati (1907-08), internalised the nationalist politics of the time, causing him and his art to be noticed even while he was a student. In 1907, he obtained a travel scholarship from the then-newly established Indian Society of Oriental Art, for which he accompanied the scholar OC Gangoly on a study tour of the temple art of South India.

A decade or so later, Bose’s artistic outlook and aesthetic sensibilities underwent a change after two related events: his first personal encounter with Japanese art through the work of Arai Kempo in 1916, and his first visit to China and Japan in 1924. When he took over the reins of the newly established Kala Bhavana in 1920, he had already made his mark under the ideological guidance of the Bengal School, with which he had grown dissatisfied. His engagement with Rabindranath deepened his distrust of the prevailing nationalist doctrines and opened his mind to the possibility of a modern Indian art that could be as original as it could be universal. His subsequent experiences of teaching and practising at Shantiniketan, therefore added specific flavours to his oeuvre, which was influenced in equal measure by the pedagogic philosophies of the school as by the local, vernacular cultures. Thus, in his most productive phase in the 1930s and 40s, Bose brought his wide range of styles and influences to bear not just on his art, but also in his contributions to Kala Bhavana as well.