Ochre Wall Art

Ochre — 14 museum-grade prints in this palette. Kalighat Pat grew up in 19th-century Kolkata, painted by migrant patua (chitrakar) scroll-painters who settled near the Kalighat Kali temple and sold quick watercolour souvenirs to pilgrims. Working on mill-made paper with a bold single black brush outline and soft 'boneless' shaded strokes on a plain ground, they painted gods and goddesses alongside what is often called India's first modern social satire — sharp, affectionate caricatures of the colonial 'babu' and the hypocrisies of Calcutta life. Komaram Bheem (1900–1940) was a Gond adivasi leader of Adilabad who fought the Asaf Jahi rule of Hyderabad for tribal land rights under the slogan 'Jal, Jangal, Zameen' (water, forest, land). His story was carried village to village by balladeer-storytellers — exactly the role the Nakashi scroll-painters of Cheriyal served, painting long cloth scrolls that travelling bards unrolled episode by episode to recite epics and community histories. Gond painting comes from the Gond Adivasi communities of central India, with its best-known school formed by the Pradhan Gond of Patangarh and the wider Dindori region of Madhya Pradesh. The contemporary form is largely the legacy of Jangarh Singh Shyam (1962–2001), whose distinctive line-and-in-fill manner — every form bounded by a bold outline, then filled with rows of dots, dashes, commas and scales — became known as Jangarh Kalam and was carried on by his family and students.

Updated 22 Jun 2026