Birthday celebration of Jogen Chowdhury 85. Festival throughout the Year.

On 16 February, 2023 artist Jogen Chowdhury will reach the milestone of 85th year. To make the year memorable Debovasha has arranged ‘Jogen Chowdhury 85’. But, do the creative geniuses have fixed dates of birth? With continually new creations their date of birth is actually everyday. Considering this aspect, Debovasha is going to celebrate the whole year as ‘Festival throughout the year’ without limiting his birth to a single day of February only. On the other hand, it is expected that connoisseurs of art will get a chance to interact with the artist and his art regularly.

‘Festival throughout the Year’ is to be celebrated by Debovasha in two ways. Publication of the artist’s Sketchbooks is a deft source for the artist’s innerworld. From his college days he has always chosen the ordinary Exercise Sketchkhatas as his Sketchroom. These khatas not only consist of varied drawings only, but jottings about his trifle duties of daily life, accounts are there– sometimes very important, sometimes not– sometimes even broodings on art are woven therein also. As we take entry into his Sketchroom, we face the light and shadow of history. Before his birthday on 16th February, on 11th February Debovasha published his Sketchkhata of 1986-87. The Festival being throughout the year, each month on 11th one of his new Sketchkhatas will continue to be published till 11th February, 2024. Alongwith the scripts of poems, collections of self portraits can be found there-in. In minibook shaped Sketch Khatas we can view his days passed in Paris, or in an old Sketchkhata of 1962 we see the portraits of singers Shantideb Ghosh, Suchitra Mitra, Hemanta Mukhopadhyay and their signatures on there portraits. During those days, our artist has not become ‘Jo’. He was Jogen Chowdhury then.

We wish to convey some important points about the first Sketchbook to be published in February, 2023. This khata is a testimony of a valued period in the life of the artist . This is about the period when, after leaving the service of Rastrapati Bhawan in Delhi, he reached Santiniketan to become a teacher in Kalabhavana. If 2023 is his 85th year of life, we calculate that he has passed 35 years in Bengal. In those years he travelled to exotic Baghdad and the Sketchkhata during this time comprises the sketches of that foreign land, its people and artists.

In this ‘Festival throughout the year’ if publication in one forum, the other one being Exhibitions. One new exhibition each month will be on view in the little museum of Debovasha. These exhibitions will be ornated with different other mediums. The first month’s exhibition is named ‘Let the colours touch the soul of soul’. His recent joyful works will be exhibited there. As in the case of publication of Sketchkhatas, the Exhibitions also will commence from 11th of each month.

The arrangement seems like a monthly magazine of art. We are not aware of the conventions in foreign land, but this effort is going to be the first of its kind in India. This actually tries to reach a small part of the artist and the colourful corners of his life.