Ganesh Pyne is obsessed with death. He can't forget his first
brush with death, in the summer of 1946, when communal riots had
rocked Kolkata. His family was forced out of their crumbling
mansion. As he roamed around the city, he stumbled upon a pile of
dead bodies. Working mostly in tempera, his paintings are rich in
imagery and symbolism. "My first painting was 'Winter's Morning'
which showed me and my brother going to school," he recalls.
In 1963, he joined the Society for Contemporary Artists. During that
period he made small drawings in pen and ink. Initially, Pyne
painted watercolors and sketches of misty mornings and wayside
temples, variously influenced as he was by Walt Disney and the
art of Abanindranath Tagore.
He counts Hals Rembrandt and Paul
Klee as the other influences.
