STATE AWARDEE ARTISANS

Srimati Dulari Devi (born 1968) is an Indian artist and illustrator, working in the Mithila art tradition. In 2021, she was a recipient of the Padma Shri, a civilian honour granted by the Government of India, for her contributions to art.

Devi lives in the village of Ranti, in the State of Bihar, in India, and was born into the marginalised Dalit Mallaah caste. She was married at the age of thirteen, but returned to live with her family at the age of eighteen, after the death of her child. She did not receive any formal education, and learned to draw and illustrate in the Madhubani style while she was working as a domestic servant in the home of Madhubani artist Mahasundari Devi. Mahasundari Devi introduced her to another artist, Karpoori Devi, who also taught Dulari Devi Madhubani art and techniques.
Dulari’s work follows the Madhubani art tradition (sometimes called Mithila art), a folk art school that developed in the Indian state of Bihar. She practices both, the ‘Kachnhi’ (line sketching) ‘and ‘Bharni’ (colored) styles of Madhubani but has indicated a preference for the latter. Although the usage of these styles has traditionally been confined to membership in specific castes, critic Sunil Kumar has described her work as being able to move between traditional stylistic divisions and occupy both fields, praising her “immense skill. “In addition, her choice of themes and description has been cited as an example of the increasing expression of empowerment among women. Her work has also been described as “combining community traditions with modern themes”.

Her work has been featured as part of course material in the Maithili language at the Indira Gandhi National Open University. In 2005, her work was curated as part of an exhibition focusing on the use of traditional imagery in Madhubani art by Narendra Narayan Sinha. In 2010, Devi and several other folk artists recorded tribal folklore in their art, which was anthologized by publisher Tara Books in a volume of silk-screen prints, titled Sun and Moon.[9] In 2018, her painting titled “Prime Minister Narendra Modi arriving at a village in a helicopter” was part of a curated exhibit of Madhubani art at the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco. The exhibition, titled ‘Painting is My Everything’, curated by Qamar Adamjee, was named after a quote taken from Devi’s description of her own career as an artist. In addition to painting, Devi has completed a number of murals for the Central and state governments in India, and teaches Madhubani art techniques to children. She is an instructor at the Madhubani Art Institute, located in Madhubani, in Bihar.

In 2011, Devi published an illustrated autobiography titled Following My Paint Brush, which she co-wrote with writer and publisher Gita Wolf. Her recent paintings, documenting the impact of COVID-19 lockdowns in her community, have been acquired by Princeton University for their Graphic Arts Collection.

Srimati Godawari Dutta is an Indian painter, well known for Madhubani Painting and patron of Mithila Kala Vikas Samiti. She was awarded India’s fourth highest civilian award the Padma Shri. Godawari Dutta was born in the mid-1920 in Bahadurpur village, Darbhanga district, Bihar, India, she was taught painting by her mother, Subhadra Devi, who herself was an artist. At only 10 years old Dutta lost her father. Together with her three siblings she was brought up by her mother. Godavari Dutta got married in 1947 and she gave birth to a son whom she had to raise by herself.

Godawari Dutta founded the Mithila Kala Viaks Samiti on December 21, 1983, an NGO that aims fight poverty and to promote Madhubani Painting and by training women in the art, and provide a basic education. The organization is engaged in designing and implementing programmes for disadvantaged communities.
In doing so Dutta has involved village women in Mithila painting and helped them to be financially independent. She also formed a village committee to promote girls’ education.

Dutta started at six years old with paintings on walls and started to use paper only in 1971. Dutta is well versed in the Kayashta style of Mithila paintings that favours black and white contrasts.Unlike other artists, she uses bamboo sticks to paint. Reoccurring themes of her art are the portrayal of characters from Ramayana and Mahabharata, as well as events of daily life like marriage or dance.

Godavari Dutta has trained teachers, as well as students under the government scheme “Center for cultural resources and training”. Dutta has been to Germany and Japan. In total she visited Japan seven times, where she stayed for six months a year.A set of works which she created during that time is now owned by the Mithila Museum in Takomachi, Japan,and in the Fukuoka Asian Art Museum, Japan.

Srimati Baua Devi is a Mithila painting artist from Jitwarpur village of Madhubani District in Bihar. Mithila painting is an ancient folk art that originated in the region. It is recognized as a series of complex geometric and linear patterns traced on the walls of a house’s inner chambers. It was later transferred to handmade paper and canvases.Baua Devi won the National Award in 1984 and received the Padma Shri in 2017.

Baua Devi has been practising the Mithila art form for almost 60 years.She got married at the age of 12, and was encouraged by her mother-in-law to pursue painting. In 1966, Pupul Jayakar, then director of the All India Handicrafts Board, an advisory body of the Ministry of textiles, sent Mumbai artist Bhaskar Kulkarni to Madhubani to find art and artists. Baua Devi was a teenager when she met Kulkarni and was the youngest of the group of artists who formally transferred Mithila art from walls, where it was traditionally practised as mural art, to paper. Bhaskar Kulkarni took their works to museums and later encouraged Baua Devi to come to the National Crafts Museum. She was paid Rs.1.50 per painting for the first year that she worked for Kulkarni.Her work has since travelled to galleries and museums in Spain, France and Japan.In 2015, one of her paintings was gifted by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to the Mayor of Hanover, Stefan Schosstok on his visit to India.

Over the past five decades, Madhubani art has grown in prominence and Baua Devi’s work has won critical acclaim—she was the only woman artist from India to show at the Magiciens de la Terre in 1989 at the Centre Pompidou. Her work ranges in scale from a small sheet of paper to murals up to 20 feet high. Her paintings tell the mythological stories of Lord Krishna and Ram and Sita, while emphasising on Sita’s narrative of the story. Baua Devi uses handmade paper and natural colours for her paintings, predominantly using black, yellow, red and white in her palette.

Sri Brahmdeo Ram Pandit is an Indian studio potter and craftsman, known for his expertise in making pottery. He was honoured by the Government of India, in 2013, by bestowing on him the Padma Shri, the fourth highest civilian award, for his contributions to the field of art.

Brahmdeo Ram Pandit was born in kumhar family with meagre financial resources, on 2 March 1949,in the Nawada district, in the Indian state of Bihar, to Ram Pandit, a pottery maker who had learned histrade from his father, Murthi Pandit. He learned the basic craft of pottery making from his father and joined Sekho Devra Ashram in Kawakole, Nawada for formal training in pottery making which he completed in 1969.Later, obtaining a scholarship, he went to Khanapur, Belgaum in Karnataka and studied at the Central Village Pottery Institute, run by the Khadi and Village Industries Commission. In 1970, after completing his course the Belgaum institute, he joined, as an apprentice, at Aaj Studio, under the tutelage of Laxman R. Ajgaonkar, and worked there for a year. In 1971, he enrolled himself at the J. J. School of Art, Mumbai and studied clay modelling and sculpture, till 1976. Another scholarship assisted him to join Lalit Kala Akademi, New Delhi and studied there till 1981. Another ten years of learning on advanced pottery making in Japan, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Singapore rounded up his studies in 1991.

Pandit started his career by joining the faculty of Sophia College Polytechnic, Mumbai, in 1973, while pursuing his advanced training and studies, and taught there till 2005. He also taught at Shri Basant Kumar Memorial Polytechnic, Mumbai and also at Kamala Mehta Dadar School for the Blind, Mumbai during a period from 1985 to 2013. He was a guest tutor at the various pottery training programmes organized by the Maharashtra Handicrafts, a state run organization. He was said to be popular among the students among whom he was known as Panditji.
Brahmdeo Pandit founded Pandit Art Ceramic,a manufacturing unit of modest proportions, in 1981, at Kalakar Niwas in Bhayandar, a city in Thane district of Maharashtra, for the mass production of his creations.The unit produces around 300 pots a day and is said to be a preferred source point for bonsai growers and ikebana artists.
Brahmdeo Ram Pandit is married to Devki, a known studio potter and a 1981 Maharashtra state award recipient, and the couple has two sons, Abhay and Sailesh, both accomplished artists in their own rights, the former, a graduate from the J. J. School of Art and the latter, a protégé of Ray Meekar and Deborah Smith of the Golden Bridge Pottery,Pondicherry and a winner of Chares Wallace India Trust award in 2005.The family, his daughter in law, Khushboo, herself a potter, included, run the Pandit Art Ceramic and resides at Bhyander.

Mahasundari Devi (15 April 1922 – 4 July 2013) was an Indian artist and Madhubani painter.She was awarded the Tulsi Samman by the Government of Madhya Pradesh in 1995, and in 2011 she received the Padma Shri award from the Government of India.

As a child, Devi was “barely literate” but began painting and learning the Madhubani art form from her aunt.

She married a school teacher, Krishna Kumar Das when she was 18. In 1961, Devi left the purdah (veil) system which was prevalent at the time and created her own niche as an artist.She founded a cooperative society called Mithila Hastashilp Kalakar Audyogki Sahyog Samiti, which supported the growth and development of handicrafts and artists.In addition to Mithila painting, Devi was known for her expertise in clay, paper mache, sujani, and Sikki.According to her family, Devi created her last painting in 2011. Devi died on 4 July 2013 in a private hospital with sources citing her age at 92. She was cremated with full state honours the next day.

She received her first felicitation in 1976 from the Bhartiya Nritya Kala for an illustration of the struggles of a Maithil girl. She received the National Award from the president of India, Neelam Sanjeeva Reddy, in 1982.Devi was considered a “living legend” of the art of painting.She was awarded the Tulsi Samman by the Government of Madhya Pradesh in 1995, and the Shilp Guru award in 2007.She received the Padma Shri award from the government of India, in 2011, for her contributions to the field of art.

Srimati Ganga Devi (1928–1991) was an Indian painter, considered by many as one of the leading exponents of Madhubani painting tradition.She is credited with popularizing the Madhubani painting outside India. She was born in 1928 in Mithila in the Indian state of Bihar in a Kayastha family and took to the traditional painting craft, specialising in the kachni (line drawing) style. She traveled abroad with her art and was a part of the Festival of India in the United States, which yielded a number of paintings under the title, America series, including Moscow Hotel, Festival of American Folk Life, and Ride in a Roller Coaster. The Government of India awarded her the National Master Craftsman Award and followed it up with the fourth highest civilian award of Padma Shri in 1984.

In the 1980s, Ganga Devi painted the famous mural Kohbar Ghar or bridal nuptial chamber at the Crafts Museum in Delhi. The Mural was painted over a period of three to four months while Ganga Devi was undergoing chemotherapy in a Delhi Hospital. The Mural was demolished as part of a renovation plan at the Museum in early 2015.
When Ganga Devi was still a child, she was handed her first brush by her mother, which was made of rice straw and a few threads drawn from the hem of her sari. Ganga Devi took soot scraped from the bottom of a cooking pot, or from the chimney of a hurricane lantern and used it as ink. It was a common practice to mix the soot with cattle urine, gum arabic dissolved in water, or sometimes even goat’s milk. She learnt this from her cousin sisters and aunts, their mothers and grandmothers. Due to lack of paper in the village, she used to practice on a canvas made from the pages of her school notebook that were often glued onto cloth.

Ganga Devi got selected for the “Festival of India in US”. She represented Indian art form in Russia and Japan. She narrated all her experiences through paintings, after which she was honored with the a National Award for Crafts by the Indian Government. When Ganga Devi was detected with cancer, in the 1980s, she could not go back to Mithila as she was prescribed regular Chemotherapy.

Srimati Sita Devi (1914–2005) was an Indian artist, specializing in painting in the Madhubani tradition. She is one of the most well-known Madhubani artists from India, and was one of the first to receive national recognition for the art form, receiving a number of awards for her work including the Padma Shri (one of India’s highest civilian honors) in 1981, as well as the Bihar Ratna Samman in 1984. She was influential in activism for local development in her village of Jitwarpur, in the state of Bihar, and taught Madhubani art to local residents, especially women, during her career in an effort to encourage financial stability. Her paintings have been praised for their individual style, particularly their use of color, have been widely exhibited, and are archived in India as well as in museums in France, the United States, the United Kingdom, and Japan.

Sita Devi was born in a village near Saharsa in the state of Bihar in 1914, and moved to the village of Jitwarpur after her marriage. She belonged to a Mahapatra Brahmin caste family.She was illiterate, but learned to paint as child by using leftover paint from local potters, and painting on the walls of her home in the local traditional Madhubani style. She died in 2005 in Madhubani.

Sita Devi was active in local politics in Bihar, chiefly in the fields of local infrastructure development and art education. Utilizing the public attention she had gained as an artist, she agitated for improvements to her village of Jitwarpur, such as the construction of roads, access to electricity, and the construction of schools.In addition, she taught Madhubani art to local residents, especially young women, and lobbied for government grants to teach painting.

The late, renowned Madhubani artist, Jagdamba Devi, embodied the true essence of Indian traditional art today: a deep and thorough understanding of the art form, the religious significance and cultural impact of the traditional craft, astounding artistry and passion, and an unwavering faith in her calling for this craft.
Born in Bhajparaul, Madhubani, on 25th February 1901, Jagdamba Devi has won the hearts of many with her intricate, spell-bounding paintings.

She was said to have spent most of her life in the village of Jitwarpur in Bihar. She did not get a formal education, yet her attitude towards art was comprehensible, and her drawing techniques were highly effective. In her works, she uses natural hues with a strong emphasis on red.

By mixing gum with goat milk, she created soft, rich, and cardinal shades of red that usually formed the backgrounds of her paintings. Jagdamba Devi’s art was popularised by Kulkarni and Pupul Jayakar, the cultural advisor to the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi.

Padma Shri was bestowed to the artist in 1975. She was the first of her kind to receive such a high honor and was followed by two others from her village, Sita Devi and Baua Devi, in receiving this award.

Sri Upendra Maharathi (11 May 1908 – 24 February 1981) was an Indian painter, architect, weaver and master craftsman. He was honored with Padma Shri in 1969 by the Government of India.In 1976, he was nominated as a member of the Bihar Legislative Assembly.

Maharathi was born on 11 May 1908 in a village named Narendrapur, located in Puri district of Odisha. Since an early age, he was deeply influenced by the folk art and culture of Orissa, its rhythm, freshness, continuity, richness and simple ornamental style and strength of assimilation. In 1925, he joined Government College of Art & Craft, Kolkata where he studied painting till 1931. A gold-medalist in his work he has truly inspired many people. He is known to have revived the cottage industry as a true Gandhian post independence and brought in new techniques for Bawan-booti (52 bootis) and Tanabana style of weaving.

In 1942, he was appointed a special designer in the Department of Industry, Bihar. In 1954, he visited Japan to attend the UNESCO International conference as Indian representative. He became skilled in ceramics, lacquer and metal works. In 1955, he founded the Institute of Industrial Designs with the purpose of encouraging and developing folk art and craft of Bihar.

Maharathi digested different and even contradictory aspects of Indian art and evolved his own idiom of expression in the orchestra of indigenous art. Maharathi is well know for diversified art styles such as realism or spiritual abstraction in his work. His landscapes in Sumi ink are simply mesmerizing, depicting a Japanese style.The two major influences on Maharathi’s works were Buddhism and Gandhism.His works typically interpreted awakening be it the enlightened Buddha or the Shiva and Parvati. his art assimilates the culture and spiritual freedom expressed in the poem Geeta-govindam, Odisi dance or Chhau dance.

Maharathi died on 24 February 1981. After his death, the Institute of Industrial Designs was was renamed as Upendra Maharathi Shilp Anusandhan Sansthan by the Government of Bihar in the honor of the artist.