Chitraniva Chowdhury

Chitraniva Chowdhury (1913–99) was the first woman professor of art at Kala Bhavan, Santiniketan. She had developed her own distinctive style of painting while studying at the institute. The pictures she drew of flowers like chalta, palash, radhachura and kadam were lyrical like her landscapes. Rabindranath Tagore who founded Kala Bhavan was so fond of her works that he rechristened her Chitraniva, meaning “like a picture”. Unfortunately, only 150 of her 500 works have been exhibited.