Saraswati Foundation profile
Rabin Mondal
1929–2019 · Indian painter from Howrah, West Bengal
A defining expressionist voice of post-independence Indian art, Rabin Mondal transformed lived urban hardship into forceful images of human struggle, anxiety and endurance.
Biography
Rabin Mondal (born Rabindra Nath Mondal) was born in 1929 in Howrah, West Bengal, and died in 2019. He studied commerce at Vidyasagar College before attending evening classes at the Indian College of Art and Draughtsmanship in Kolkata. His artistic language was shaped by the difficult social landscape around him: the poverty and upheaval of Howrah, the Bengal famine, and the trauma of the 1946 Calcutta riots.
Working in an expressionist mode, Mondal created paintings marked by tense, often grotesque figures that reflect inner turmoil, alienation and the human condition. He was a founding member of Calcutta Painters in 1964 and served on the General Council of the Lalit Kala Akademi from 1979 to 1983.
Awards & Honours
- Eminent Painter, AIFACS (1996)
- Abanindranath Puraskar, Kolkata (2001)
Exhibitions & Residencies
- First solo exhibition, Academy of Fine Arts, Kolkata, circa 1961–62
- Later retrospectives in Kolkata, New Delhi and Mumbai
Selected Works
No selected Foundation work is presented.