Kein Foto

Das, Santosh Kumar

Santosh Kumar Das is a Mithila artist from Madhubani in Bihar. Das learnt his art from the women in his household, his mother in the first place, and later on his aunts — the great artists Mahasundari Devi and Karpoori Devi. The inspiration for his art has been diverse — from politics, natural disasters and cinema to music and religion. A Fine Arts graduate, he also led an art school for six years in his home town. Das has held several talks in the U.S. on his art, and is the recipient of the Ojas Art Award.

Black</a>

Black

“The rightful place for an artist, his real world, is a pot of black ink. I believe it contains all the magic, all the forms, everything that human beings can imagine and render...” says Mithila artist Santosh Kumar Das. In this poetic memoir of his growth into art, he pays a poignant tribute to the muses that transformed him into an artist — the greatest of them being his mother, along with the other women of the household who practised this originally female tradition of art.