(1882 - 1966)
Born in 1882, in Bihar, Nandalal Bose was one of the stalwarts of the Bengal School Movement in Indian contemporary art. He attended the government College of Art. In 1920 Rabindranath Tagore took him from Calcutta to Santiniketan and entrusted him to teach his Art School Kala-Bhavana. A sincere teacher and sensitive artist Nandalal was invited by Mahatma Gandhi to set up Art Exhibitions for Indian National Congress several times. Nandalal received several awards including Padma Bhushan, Padma Vibhushan and Bharat Ratna – the highest civilian award of India. The Haripura panel paintings, among the most well-known of his works, are a series of seventy-seven panels that were executed on handmade paper in 1938, to mark the Congress session in Gujarat and which he had painted at the behest of Mahatma Gandhi. The Archaeological Survey of India declared him as one among the nine artists whose works were deemed non-exportable art treasures of the nation. In 2008, the San Diego Museum showcased some of his works posthumously. He passed away on April 16, 1966.