| Medium | : | Ink |
|---|---|---|
| Height | : | 7.1 inch / 18 cm |
| Width | : | 10.8 inch / 27.4 cm |
| Dimension | : | W: 27.4 cm × H: 18 cm |
A minimalist pen-and-ink drawing by Somnath Hore, capturing fragile human forms through continuous line and expressive restraint, evoking vulnerability and quiet introspection.
Somnath Hore | Untitled | Pen & Ink on Paper | 7.1 x 10.8 inches | 1972
This untitled pen-and-ink drawing by Somnath Hore exemplifies the artist’s spare, incisive approach to the human figure, where line becomes both structure and emotion. The composition unfolds across the surface with three loosely articulated figures, each reduced to essential contours through continuous, unbroken strokes. On the left, a reclining figure twists inward, the bent limbs and compressed posture suggesting physical vulnerability and psychological strain. At the center, a standing figure—its form elongated and slightly hunched—appears burdened, with gestures that convey weariness and introspection rather than action. To the right, a small seated figure, rendered with minimal detail, reinforces a sense of isolation and quiet resignation. Hore’s refusal to model volume or add descriptive detail allows the white space of the paper to function as an emotional field, amplifying the fragility of the drawn forms. Through this economy of means, the drawing transcends narrative specificity, offering instead a universal meditation on human endurance, displacement, and the silent weight of existence.
Somnath hore was the quintessential bengal artist deeply affected by the cataclysms that changed its history, such as the 1943 famine. a man-made crisis resulting in the death of two-three million people and the 1946 tebhaga peasant uprising.
A multifaceted artist who spent a lifetime exploring human suffering through his sketches, prints and sculptures, Somnath Hore was born in Chittagong in present-day Bangladesh in 1921.
Studying briefly at Government School of Art, Calcutta, in the mid-1940s, Hore trained under Zainul Abedin, and, later, under printmaker Saifuddin Ahmed. A participatory practice with fellow artists like Chittaprosad led to his intellectual growth. Hore’s early sketches were published in Janayuddha and People’s War, publications of the Communist Party; like many young men in the 1940s, Hore too joined the political party though he drifted away from it later.
Hore chose a distinctly formal, Western style of artmaking, distinguished by its strong linear quality, and guided by humanist concerns that foregrounded the indigent grappling with issues of survival. Distilled into iconic heads and emaciated bodies, his act of recovering the erased re-inscribed them into public memory. The anguished human form was reflected in Hore’s figuration through bold, minimal strokes enhanced by rough surfaces, slits and holes.
Over a thirty-year teaching career, Hore set up the printmaking department of Delhi Polytechnic in 1958. He joined Kala Bhavana, Santiniketan, as head of its printmaking department in 1968, where his own practice received a boost under the guidance of Ramkinkar Baij and Benodebehari Mukherjee.
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