Chitranibha Chowdhury

Chitranibha Chowdhury (27 November 1913 – 9 November 1999) was a twentieth-century Indian artist, a member of the Bengal School of Art, and one of the first female painters in Bengal. She created over a thousand artworks, including landscapes, still lifes, decorative art, murals, and portraits. She was a Nandalal Bose student and the first female painting teacher in Kala Bhavana, Shantiniketan. Her real name Nibhanani Bose was changed to Chitranibha Bose by Rabindranath Tagore.

Early life She was born Nibhanani, to Saratkumari Devi and Dr. Bhagaban Chandra Bose at Jiagunje, in the Murshidabad district of present West Bengal. During her youth, her family relocated to Gomoh and then to Chandpur. There, in 1927, at the age of fourteen, her brought her to the attention of Monoranjan Chowdhury, a member of a highly educated and cultured Zamindar family of Lamchor, and he arranged for her to marry his younger brother, Niranjan Chowdhury.

Life in Shantiniketan

In 1928, Chodhury's in-laws sent her to Visva Bharati University, Shantiniketan, along with her husband. The founder and head of the university, Rabindranath Tagore, met with her and sent her to Nandalal Bose and Dinendranath Tagore to learn painting and music respectively at Kala Bhavana, the university's fine arts faculty. He subsequently gave her a new name, Chitranibha (Chitra means painting and Nibha means beauty), in light of her artistic skill. Pieces of her work were published in the journal Jayshree.

Mural at Noakhali In 1937, she had to resign her position at Kala Bhavan and join her in-laws' household at Noakhali, In the late 1940s, Chowdhury returned to Shantiniketan in order to have her daughter educated at Visva Bharati. She died in 1999.

Some of the notable paintings by Chitranibha Chowdhury: