(b Baliatore, 15 Apr. 1887; d Calcutta, 24 Apr. 1972). Indian painter. He was born in rural Bengal and studied at the Government School of Art in Calcutta, 1906–14. At the beginning of his career he painted portraits in an academic style, but in the 1920s he turned to the local folk art tradition as a source of inspiration, seeing in it a way to recapture an archaic innocence that had been pushed aside by Western influence. His work—mainly scenes from everyday life—became very popular in India and was discovered by Allied troops and other Westerners who found themselves in Calcutta during the Second World War. In this way he became one of the few modern Indian artists whose work was known outside his own country. To Westerners it had some of the same attraction as European naive painting.