Folk Art Wall Art Wall Art

Folk Art Wall Art — 406 museum-grade prints on the theme. Aipan is the ritual floor- and wall-art of the Kumaon region of Uttarakhand, made traditionally by Kumaoni women with white rice-paste (biswar) drawn by fingertip onto a geru — red-ochre earth — ground, most often at thresholds, courtyards and household shrines before festivals and life-rites. The strictly two-tone white-on-geru discipline is the heart of the form and distinguishes it from multicolour Mithila/Madhubani work. Khovar is the marriage wall art of Hazaribagh district, Jharkhand, combed by women of tribal and Kurmi communities onto the bridal chamber before a wedding, using a sgraffito technique — wet white kaolin slip over a dark base coat, combed and scratched away with a broken comb so the dark ground reads as line. Paired fish are a classic Khovar fertility motif, promising plenty and increase to the new household, alongside lotus and peacocks. 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.

Updated 22 Jun 2026