Sunil Das

1939 - 2015

One of India’s most important post-modernist painters, Sunil Das, is known for his iconic drawings and paintings of horses and bulls.

He rose to prominence early when he became the only Indian artist to win the Lalit Kala Akademi’s national award while still an undergraduate student in 1959.

Born on 4 August 1939 in Calcutta, he joined the city’s Government College of Arts and Crafts in 1955. Later, on a French government scholarship, he went to study at École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris, where he also trained with S. William Hayter and Krishna Reddy at Atelier 17.

Between 1950 and 1960, Das created thousands of drawings of horses. He spent hours at the stables of Calcutta’s mounted police, studying horses and making sketches. While in Europe, Das visited Spain and, after witnessing a series of bullfights, made several drawings and paintings of bulls. His flawless drawings capture the speed, power, and energy of these equines and bovines, symbolic of the energy, aggression, and power of modern times and of his own untamed youthful spirit and a sense of liberation.

Das also created a series to represent the pressures women are subjected to in an almost surreal manner. F. N. Souza once said about Das’s work: ‘His paintings are often about death and horror… [He is] a master of the horrific in art.’ Experimenting with techniques, mediums, and styles throughout his career, Das passed away in Kolkata on 10 August 2015.