Meera Mukherjee

Meera Mukherjee,  born in Calcutta in 1923, is regarded as a pathbreaking Sculptor and Painter who brought modernity to Bengal art. She studied at Government College of Art and Craft, Kolkata and the Delhi Polytechnic, Delhi to complete diploma in painting, graphics and sculpture. Later she received an Indo-German Fellowship at the Academy of Fine Arts, Munich. 

Meera Mukherjee is considered as an artist who relentlessly portrayed lives of common man. Struggles of fishermen, weavers, peasants and women were recurring subjects of her work. Meera Mukherjee’s work was also deeply infused with symbolism drawn from Indian mythology and motifs. Her exploration of myth and nature was not just a return to tradition but an attempt to re-interpret and re-imagine these symbols in the context of contemporary Indian life. 

She was honoured with Padma Shri in 1992. Meera Mukherjee passed away in 1998, at the age of 75.

Academics

Folk Metal Casting with Craftsmen from West Bengal, Bihar, Orissa; Metal Work with Nepali Sakya Craftsmen in 1961-62 

Folk Metal Casting with Bastar Gharuas in 1960 

Academie de Nildenden Kunstem, Germany, Painting under Prof. Glethe ; Sculpture under Prof. Stadler &h Heinrich Kirchner; Etching under Prof. Thiermann ;Lithography under Prof. Lowasser in 1953-56 

Diploma in Painting, Graphics and Sculpture, New Delhi Polytechnic in 1947-51 

Indian Society of Oriental Art, Kolkata in 1937-41

Awards

Abanindranath Puruskar, West Bengal Government 1980

President’s Award for Master Craftsman in Metalwork 1967-68 

Ladies Study Group, Kolkata 1967

Research Fellowship, Anthropological Survey of India 1965

Scholarship to study at the Bayerische Akademie der Sch nen K nste, Munich 1953