>Johnpacklambert: added birth and death years to opening

2021-10-04T12:06:22Z

added birth and death years to opening

New page

{{EngvarB|date=September 2014}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=September 2014}}
{{Infobox person
| name = Somnath Hore
| image = Somnath Hore.jpg
| birth_date = 1921
| birth_place = [[Chittagong]], British India (now Bangladesh)
| death_date = {{death year and age|2006|1921}}
| death_place = [[Santiniketan]], India
| occupation = Painter, sculptor, [[Muralist]], [[Printmaker]]
| nationality = Indian
| alma_mater = [[Visva-Bharati University]]
| spouse = [[Reba Hore]]
| awards = [[Padma Bhushan]]
}}

'''Somnath Hore''' (1921-2006) was an Indian sculptor and printmaker. His sketches, sculptures and prints were a reaction to major historical crises and events of 20th century [[Bengal]], such as the [[Bengal Famine of 1943]] and the [[Tebhaga movement]]. He was a recipient of the Indian civilian honour of the [[Padma Bhushan]].<ref name="Padma Awards">{{cite web | url=http://mha.nic.in/sites/upload_files/mha/files/LST-PDAWD-2013.pdf | title=Padma Awards | publisher=Ministry of Home Affairs, Government of India | date=2015 | access-date=July 21, 2015}}</ref>

== Early life ==
Somnath Hore was born in 1921 in [[Chittagong]], now in [[Bangladesh]]. He lost his father early and was schooled with the help of his uncle. In his youth he became affiliated with the Communist Party, and his socialist ideologies influenced the early phases of his artistic career. It was through the active patronage of the Communist Party of India that Hore gained entrance to the Government Art College in Calcutta. [[Haren Das]] was then presiding over the graphics department, and Hore had the advantage of learning from him.<ref name=arunghose>''Somnath Hore, Life and Art'', Arun Ghose, Gallerie 88, 2007</ref>

In 1943 he did visual documentation and reporting of the Bengal famine for the Communist Party magazine ''Jannayuddha (People's War)''. His coming of age as an artist coincided with the 1946 peasant unrest in Bengal known as the [[Tebhaga movement]]. Hore became a follower of [[Chittaprosad Bhattacharya]], the political propagandist and printmaker.<ref name=arunghose/>

== Career ==
Hore learned the methods and nuances of printmaking, mainly [[lithography]] and [[Intaglio (printmaking)|intaglio]], at the [[Government College of Art & Craft, Kolkata|Government College of Art and Craft]] in Calcutta. By the 1950s he was regarded as the premier printmaker in India. Hore invented and developed various printmaking techniques of his own, including his famous [[pulp-print technique]], which he used in the critically acclaimed ''Wounds'' series of prints.<ref>''Manifestations II'', Rabina Karode, Delhi Art Gallery 2004, {{ISBN|81-902104-0-8}}</ref>

At the behest of [[Dinkar Kaushik]], Hore came to [[Santiniketan]] to head the Graphics and Printmaking Department. Somnath lived most of his later life at Santiniketan, where he taught at [[Kala Bhavan]], the art faculty of [[Visva Bharati University]]. There he became a close associate of the painter [[K.G. Subramanyan]] and the sculptor [[Ramkinkar Baij]].<ref name=arunghose/>

In the 1970s Hore also started making sculpture. His contorted bronze figurines recalled the agonies of famine and war, and became iconic emblems of modern Indian art.<ref>''A Guide to 101 Modern and Contemporary Indian Artists'', Amrita Jhaveri, India Book House, 2005 {{ISBN|81-7508-423-5}}</ref> One of his largest sculptures, ''Mother and Child'', which paid tribute to the sufferings of the people of Vietnam, was stolen from Kala Bhavan soon after it was finished and disappeared without a trace.<ref>Vadehra Art Gallery, [http://www.contemporaryindianart.com 20th Century Museum of Contemporary Art].</ref>

Hore died in 2006 at the age of 85. He is prominently represented in the collection of the [[National Gallery of Modern Art]], New Delhi.<ref>[http://www.delhiartgallery.com Delhi Art Gallery].</ref>

Following the death of the artist [[Gopal Krishna Gandhi (artist)|Gopal Krishna Gandhi]] wrote in the newspaper ''[[The Daily Telegraph|Telegraph]]'', "Somnath Hore was more than an artist. He was a witness of the human drama but a witness with a skill that translated his witnessing into art. In an age when secularism, socialism and peace can be seen- or rubbished- as shibboleths, he knew them to be vital needs. In times when art can become a play-thing of drawing rooms and auction halls, he kept it close to its springs-his human sensibility."

While the reputed art historian [[R. Siva Kumar]] in the essay entitled Somnath Hore : A Reclusive Socialist and a Modernist Artist wrote, "We do not chosose suffering, and we do not choose heroism. But suffering often compels us to be heroic. Somnath Hore (1921–2006) was an artist who led a quiet and heroic life. Quiet because he always kept himself away from the glare of the art world; and heroic because he chose to stand by the suffering and held steadfast to his political and thematic commitments even though he knew this meant trading a lonely path. He kept himself away from the din of art not because art was a lesser passion for him but because life mattered more and art did not stand witness to human suffering, did not mean much to him. And human suffering was for him, as a Communist, not an existential predicament, into which we are all born (or a visitation or even a tool to know god as it was for Van Gogh), but something always socially engendered." In the same essay [[R. Siva Kumar]] writes, "The famine and the sharecropper's revolt acquired an archetypal significance in Somnath Hore's vision of reality. During these years there were a host of other tragic visitations: the communal riots, the Partition, the exodus of the religious minorities and the loss of home for millions, including Somnath. But none of them found a place in his work comparable to that of the famine and the peasant revolt, which were for him symbols of human condition and aspirations of those with whom he identified.”<ref>{{Cite web|title=South Asian art including property from the Dartington Hall Trust|url=http://www.sothebys.com/en/catalogues/ecatalogue.html/2010/south-asian-art-including-property-from-the-dartington-hall-trust-l10222#/r=/en/ecat.fhtml.L10222.html+r.m=/en/ecat.lot.L10222.html/73/+r.o=/en/ecat.notes.L10222.html/73/|url-status=live|website=[[Sothebys]]}}</ref>

== Style ==
In the early 1950s Hore's drawings and his ''Tebhaga'' series of [[woodcut]]s show the influence of Chinese [[Socialist Realism]] and [[German Expressionism]]. He was also influenced in his youth by the robust style of German printmaker [[Käthe Kollwitz]] and Austrian Expressionist [[Oskar Kokoschka]]. As the artist evolved, his drawings, especially his human figures, became simplified and shed details. Through this reduction he achieved his individual style of contorted and suffering figures created with a masterly use of line. His sculptures show a similar approach. In the 1970s Somnath's artistic journey culminated in his ''Wounds Series'' of paper pulp prints, where he achieved a unique brand of abstraction without sacrificing his long-practiced humanism.<ref name=arunghose/>

== References ==
{{reflist}}

== External links ==
*[http://www.saffronart.com/artists/somnath-hore "Somnath Hore Profile,Interview and Artworks"]
* [http://www.contemporaryindianart.com/somnath_hore.htm 20th Century Museum of Contemporary Indian Art]
* [http://www.artnet.com/artist/74957/somnath-hore.html On the ''Artnet'']
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20071005212439/http://www.cimaartindia.com/NewCima/Artists/SomnathHore.htm Centre of International Modern Art]
* [http://www.indowindow.net/delhimagazine/sanam/shore/contents.htm Tebhaga sketches and woodcuts]
* [http://www.waswoxwaswoartcollection.blogspot.com Collection of Indian Printmaking]

{{PadmaBhushanAwardRecipients 2000–09}}
{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hore, Somnath}}
[[Category:1921 births]]
[[Category:2006 deaths]]
[[Category:Bengali male artists]]
[[Category:Recipients of the Padma Bhushan in arts]]
[[Category:Government College of Art & Craft alumni]]
[[Category:University of Calcutta alumni]]
[[Category:Visva-Bharati University faculty]]
[[Category:People from Chittagong]]
[[Category:Indian male sculptors]]
[[Category:Indian lithographers]]
[[Category:20th-century Indian painters]]
[[Category:Indian male painters]]
[[Category:20th-century Indian sculptors]]
[[Category:Artists from Kolkata]]
[[Category:Painters from West Bengal]]

Somnath Hore - Revision history

>Johnpacklambert: added birth and death years to opening