Suranjan Basu

Suranjan Basu fondly remembered as Tublu-da by his countless friends and students was a tall slender man with a sharp gaze and a deep empathy that characterized his persona as well as his art. We remember him as one of those teachers on the campus who was always ready to interact, argue, discuss and always with a refreshing urgency and passion which came very naturally to him. His passion was no doubt infectious. So was his teaching. Despite his own ever-growing commitment to certain artistic-ideals, by temperament he was amazingly open to a myriad of diverse, even contrary ideas and approaches without an iota of resistance. Suranjan’s resistance as an individual artist was ideological rooted and more political in nature. Even a cursory look at his images suggests that.

Agonized people on the street, nameless yet explicit faces of deprivation and struggle, daily hardships of the browbeaten – these were some of the persistent motifs in Suranjan Basu’s art. Primarily a consummate and highly innovative printmaker, he reacted strongly to the social incongruities engendered by the exploitative capitalist forces, responded to the ugly realities of contemporary life and was peeved at the repulsive display of wealth by the upper classes in contrast with the abject poverty of the struggling mass. This particular sense of social realism, perhaps bordering on the imagined fear of cliché in the age of skepticism, was certainly political, developed as a reaction against the self-obsessed and self-indulgent narratives widely practiced in contemporary art. Gradually his project also encompassed concerns within a broader spectrum where he extended his thoughts related to art practice not only to its content but also to its place in society. Going further, he took up various strategies to re-educate and re-enlighten society which included initiatives like putting up works of art on the street of suburbs outside the elite cultural zones. His commitment to these values remained undiminished till his untimely demise at the age of 45.

Born and brought up in Santiniketan, Suranjan grew up as a keen observer who came into close contact with both nature and people with remarkable intensity. Having completed his Graduation in Printmaking from Kala Bhavana, Santiniketan, Suranjan went to Baroda for his Masters in Printmaking, moved to Delhi for a while and eventually came back to Santiniketan where he taught at Kala Bhavana for the rest of his life. One of the founder members of the Artists’ collective called ‘The Realists’ in 1984, Suranjan believed in a certain notion of ‘real’ defined within the contours of the Left visual rhetoric dedicated to tell stories of the class struggle and unrealized democracy. Circumventing the typical rhetorical and propagandist imageries, Suranjan invested more on the thematic and narrative potentials of his art often with an overtone of satire and sarcasm.