Jogen Chowdhury was born in a village
near Kotaliparha at Faridpur district at what is now Bangladesh in 1939. The
family moved to Calcutta in 1947 following the Partition of Bengal.
Chowdhury entered the Government College of Art and Crafts in 1955 and
graduated from the college in 1960. Besides his numerous activities,
Chowdhury has written extensively on contemporary art.
Always a
powerful artist, Chowdhury developed his individual style after his return
from France in the late '60s. Although Chowdhury has painted oils, his forte
is painting in ink, water color and pastel. The sinuous line contouring the
flaccid figures, the crosshatching to achieve tonal variations distinguish
Chowdhury's paintings which show men and women m enigmatic situations with
provocative gestures placed in a dark dream- space. There is a bit of the
theatre of the absurd. Chowdhury lives and works in Santiniketan.