An Introduction to Artist Manishi Dey

Delhi (December 19, 2004)

Barring a few stray references, there is not much that you can find on the Internet about artist Manishi Dey (1906-1966).

Progressive Artists Group Showing Manishi Dey Standing Extreme Right

The group photograph showing Manishi Dey (standing extreme right) in the company of other Progressive Artists Group is from the Kekoo Gandhy collection, presented in the article “An artist and a movement” in the Frontline magazine.

Manishi, one of the most versatile students of Abanindranath Tagore’s Bengal School, was a born rebel and a bohemian who drifted away, forever in search of varied and newer visual idioms. His interaction with Sailoz Mukherjea in New Delhi during late-1940s and early-1950s is one of the most cherished memories of Shantanu Ukil.

Though somewhat “settled” in Bangalore, Manishi wandered often from place to place interacting with a wide cross-section of people. He was an artist essentially restless in spirit. In a way, he was the product of that indecisive time when India was still in search of her cultural identity and roots.

Probably, he was a man torn from within, and who detested “to fight against two prevalent schools of thought in those days, the Royal Academy, which was British-oriented, and the revivalist school in Mumbai, which was not a progressive movement”. (vide. Maqbool Fida Husain in Frontline).

It is apt to mention here an article ‘Refugee Nightmare’ published in the Illustrated Weekly of India, December 3, 1950. Even though the article does not claim to be a profile on Manishi Dey, it showcases an interesting “turning point” in the artist’s career.

At a later point of time we intend to upload a transcript of Shantanu Ukil’s reminiscences on Sailoz Mukherjea and Manishi Dey. -Ed

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