15 Facts About Somnath Hore

Somnath Hore was a recipient of the Indian civilian honour of the Padma Bhushan.

Somnath Hore was born in 1921 in Chittagong, now in Bangladesh.

Somnath Hore lost his father early and was schooled with the help of his uncle.

Haren Das was then presiding over the graphics department, and Somnath Hore had the advantage of learning from him.

Somnath Hore's coming of age as an artist coincided with the 1946 peasant unrest in Bengal known as the Tebhaga movement.

Somnath Hore became a follower of Chittaprosad Bhattacharya, the political propagandist and printmaker.

Somnath Hore learned the methods and nuances of printmaking, mainly lithography and intaglio, at the Government College of Art and Craft in Calcutta.

Somnath 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.

At the behest of Dinkar Kaushik, Somnath Hore came to Santiniketan to head the Graphics and Printmaking Department.

Somnath Hore lived most of his later life at Santiniketan, where he taught at Kala Bhavan, the art faculty of Visva Bharati University.

Somnath Hore is prominently represented in the collection of the National Gallery of Modern Art, New Delhi.

Somnath Hore was a witness of the human drama but a witness with a skill that translated his witnessing into art.

Somnath Hore was an artist who led a quiet and heroic life.

Somnath Hore 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.

Somnath Hore was influenced in his youth by the robust style of German printmaker Kathe Kollwitz and Austrian Expressionist Oskar Kokoschka.