Jogen Chowdhury

 Jogen Chowdhury was born in Daharpara Village, Faridpur, Bangladesh in 1939. Jogen's father Pramatnath Chowdhury was a Brahmin zamindar. Both his parents took interest in art, Jogen's father Pramatnath Chowdhury; painted several mythological scenes from the village theatres and also sculpted various Hindu icons. Where as his mother was an expert in Alpana drawings. 1939-47 Jogen Chowdhury lived in a village atmosphere. 1947 Just before partition Jogen and his father shifted to Calcutta.

 Chowdhury's formal training in art started in 1955 at Government College of Art and Craft. He went to Paris in 1965 to study at Ecole des Beaux Arts and in William Hayter's Atelier 17. He developed a very unique style of his own after returning from France and since then worked extensively with ink, water colour and pastel. The flowing line contouring flabby figures of men and women in provocative poses form a distinct characteristic feature in Chowdhury's style. The power and beauty of his technique lies in his use of colour to give volume to the figures and the fluidity of lines to depict sensuality of the forms. He plays the vigour of a strong pastel line against the richness of a pebbled ink treatment. And while his preferred idiom is the compelling black line – thick as a rope or cross-hatched like a net that will not allow the smallest nuance of emotion to escape he has also opened his frames to tints of muted grey, chalky blue and ochre.