Kalidas Karmakar
1946 – 2019
Kalidas Karmakar was born in 1946 in Faridpur, to a family of goldsmiths and artisans. And so, drawing and painting came naturally to him. He completed his preliminary degree at the Institute of Fine Art, Dhaka, in 1964 and went on to complete his graduation from the Government College of Fine Arts and Crafts in Kolkata in 1969.
In the seventies, Karmakar began his career with paintings in which he assembled metal objects. With prints he began to explore mythic and Tantric images in the eighties, opening up new possibilities for etching and aquatint.
His energetic persona could captivate crowds, and consequently, Karamakar often staged performances during his exhibitions. His performances at chars on the River Padma in the late 1980s signalled the drift towards site-specific art in Bangladesh. His works have been showed around the world.
An assiduous painter, printmaker and innovator, Karmakar loved to travel and learn new things. He researched printmaking and graphic art in Poland, Japan and France.
Notable among his numerous awards and honours are the Shilpakala Padak in 2016 and the Ekushey Padak in 2018. Kalidas Karmakar died in Dhaka 2019.