Biography
Born on the banks of the Brahmaputra in Jamalpur, Mymensingh, now in Bangladesh in 1936, Ganesh Haloi
moved to Kolkata in 1950 following the partition of India. The trauma of the uprooting left its mark on his
work as it did on some other painters of his generation. Haloi has a very strong sense of oneness with nature,
especially landscape, one of his deepest source of inspiration. He merge with the landscape that he loses his
own identity; there is no sense of alienation for him. “My feelings and affection are here. The mountains, the
people playing folk songs on the banks, I do not think it is something separate from me. I am not apart from
the landscape", he says.
On the walls of Ganesh Haloi’s drawing-dining room hangs a painting resonating with the ornate artistic
style of Ajanta, and thereby hangs a tale. In the late 1950’s, when he was assigned to reproduce the frescoes of
Ajanta by the Archaeological Survey of India, Haloi was mesmerized by the magnificent murals of Visvantara
Jataka, the lotus motifs, mandalas, apsaras, demons and deities painted on the ancient cave walls. The work
traces a memory of those early times, restrained and reined in; luminous veins hint at the more decorous
forms and colours that gave his early works their vitality and life. The experience of Ajanta influenced Haloi
profoundly. His work was marked by lyricism and worked in many mediums and initially painted figures in
landscapes. The mood was was inevitably poignant. Gradually, Haloi moved towards landscapes. A sense of
nostalgia for a lost world pervaded these paintings. Eventually, Haloi turned to abstract renderings of
landscapes. Dots, dashes, lines became cryptic signs for trees, water, green fields. A refreshing interlude came
when Haloi did some architectural paintings after a tour of the ruins of Gour Pandua in north Bengal. Haloi
has done a number of commissioned mosaic murals. His stint at Ajanta led him to study Buddhism, do
research and publish a paper on the ‘Techniques of Ajanta Murals’ in the journal of Art in Industry in 1964.
Haloi’s abstraction, filtered to their present pure dimensions, contain within them hidden civilizations and
imagined landscapes of what was lost in transition. Haloi spent weeks of gathering shells by the shore,
recording the sound of the sea as it ebbed and flowed. He carried with him the rhythm of the ocean until it
had become a part of him and his art. Distilled seascapes or landscapes, Haloi’s temperas and oils contain
depths beyond the abstracted forms of quiet green-blues, sienna-rust and yellow-grays. Beneath the
abstraction brown or smudging of dove and white, are cornices, arches, gateways - remnants of architectural
structures, layers and layers under the surface. ‘I excavate my past like an archaeologist’, he had once
confessed. Haloi’s studio in the early years had been a mere partitioned cubicle in the midst of a bustling
household in Bangur, Kolkata that overlooked a narrow canal lined with trees and shrubs. Today as the
painter begins his day with a cup of tea in his studio, it is quiet, the early morning sun streaming in through
the open windows. Haloi has been working here for decades and the domestic routine remains unvaried.
In 1956, he graduated from the Government College of Arts and Crafts, Kolkata, and went on to work there
as a teacher. After seven years' involvement in the Ajanta work, Haloi returned to work in Calcutta. He
taught at the Government College of Art and Craft since 1963 till his retirement. Since 1971, he has been a
'member of the Society of Contemporary Artists. He has had numerous exhibitions in Kolkata in 1962,
Melbourne in 1991 and at Bose Pacia Modern, New York, in 1995. In 2002, his work was featured in an
exhibition curated by Manjit Bawa at the Societe Asiatique, Gurgaon, and in 2003 at the Chitrakoot Art
Gallery, Kolkata. Haloi received the gold medal from Academy of Fine Arts, Kolkata in 1963-64 and 1970. In
1970, he was also conferred the Rabindra Bharati Award, Kolkatta, and in 1991 was the recipient of the
Shiromani Puraskar, conferred by the Government of India. Ganesh Haloi lives and works in Kolkata.
Text Reference:
Excerpts from the books Indian Contemporary Painting by Neville Tuli, published by Harry N. Abrams Inc.
Publishers, 1997, pg.301; Faces of Indian Art Through the Lens of Nemai Ghosh, by Ina Puri, published by
Art Alive Gallery, 2007, pg. 204 ; Indian Contemporary Art Post Independence, published by Vadehra Art
Gallery, 1997, pg. 148