Ben Uri Research Unit

Born: 1933 Calcutta, British India (now Kolkata, India)

Died: 2022 London, England

Year of Migration to the UK: 1958

Biography

Artist and teacher, Amal Ghosh was born in Calcutta, British India (now Kolkata, India) in 1933. He studied painting at the Government College of Art and Craft whose educational focus had evolved over the twentieth century, from ancient Indian and Mughal to Euro-centric art; as Ghosh recalled: ‘cultural colonialism ensured that my initial development as an artist had little to do with my own cultural heritage […] modelled in philosophy and practice on the Slade School of Fine Art in London’ (Ghosh and Lamba, 2001). Excelling at his studies, however, Ghosh moved to London, England, attending Central School of Arts and Crafts (now Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts London) from 1958-60. There he specialised in mural painting under the system called 'Basic Design', which emphasised line, pattern and form to achieve sensory or emotional affects. Taught by artists Cecil Collins and Alan Davie, who were both inspired by Eastern art and spirituality in different ways, Ghosh recalled that they ‘reaffirmed and valued my Indian heritage in a way that had not been possible in India’ (Ghosh and Lamba, 2001). He then attended Hertfordshire College of Art and Design, St Albans (Buckman, 2006, now University of Hertfordshire).

Ghosh exhibited frequently in London in this period, including solo exhibitions at the Vanview Gallery (1969), and thrice at the Royal Academy’s Summer Exhibition (1974, 1975, 1977). In the late 1980s, Ghosh joined the Indian Artists UK (IAUK), a group that aimed to provide exhibition opportunities and work collectively to raise awareness of Indian arts and culture in the UK. Originally established in 1963 as the Indian Painters Collective by Gajanan D. Bhagwat, Yashwant Mali, Lancelot Ribeiro, and Ibrahim Wagh, the group changed its name to IAUK in the late 1970s. At that time, this was the only body representing South Asian artists in the UK. Ghosh was on the selection committee for one of the group’s most significant achievements, the exhibition Between Two Cultures, held at the Barbican Art Centre’s Concourse, London in 1982. Coinciding with the Festival of India, in the catalogue’s introduction Ghosh called for an acceptance and acknowledgement of ‘the Indian past’ and the ‘British present and future’, and the hope of creating ‘greater awareness and break down some of the prejudice towards the Indian Artist in the UK’ (Ghosh, 1982). IAUK renamed itself the Indian Arts Council in 1983, and established the Horizon Gallery on Marchmont Street, London in 1987.

Whereas his earlier paintings had been inspired by abstract expressionism, Ghosh's works from the mid-1980s were characterised by human and animal forms depicted in non-naturalistic, abstract ways. He began combining the modernist contortions of Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse and Marc Chagall with symbolic animals and creatures from Hindu and Buddhist visual culture (Correia, South Asian Diaspora Arts Archive). In its inaugural year, Ghosh held a solo show at the Horizon Gallery, Connections, during which one reviewer praised him for creating a body of work ‘relevant to its time in an attempt to confirm hope and salvation through creativity’ (Horn, 1987). After showing his work in a group show, Transition of Riches, at Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery in 1993, a critic described Ghosh's paintings as enacting ‘unspoken, emotionally charged dramas that resonate with the promise of narrative, but remain hermetically sealed’ (Guha, 1993). Other group shows included Numaish Lalit Kala at Bluecoat, Liverpool (1988), and, alongside Mohanti, Wagh and Suresh Vedak, in the fourth instalment of the Horizon Gallery’s In Focus series (1990). He also executed a number of public commissions encompassing mosaic and tile murals, stained glass and sculptural glass pieces, including for London's Eastman Dental Hospital (1991–92), West Middlesex University Hospital (1997) and the Grand Union Canal at Brentford, Middlesex (2001).

From the late 1960s Ghosh taught enamelling and then later stained glass at what was to become Central Saint Martins, under Patrick Reyntiens as Head of Fine Art, and was one of the first lecturers of Asian origin to teach at a British art school. Ghosh became course director for stained glass when Reyntiens retired in 1986, before retiring himself in 1997. Ghosh also established the popular stained glass course at the City Literary Institute (City Lit) in the 1960s, teaching there until the 1990s, and organising a student commission of heraldic shields at the House of Lords (1981). He also taught at Froebel College, University of Roehampton (Buckman, 2006). In 2001, with Juginder Lamba, Ghosh co-edited Beyond Frontiers: Contemporary British Art by Artists of South Asian Descent, marking the first survey the work of contemporary British artists whose ancestral roots lie in the countries and cultures of South Asia. Amal Ghosh died in London, England on 24 February 2022. His works are held in UK public collections, including the V&A, Birmingham Museums Trust, and the Arts Council Collection; archive material is held by Birmingham Museums and Art Gallery.

Related books

Nazneen Khan-Østrem, London: Immigrant City (London: Robinson, 2021), pp. 241-244
Eddie Chambers, Black Artists in British Art: A History Since the 1950s (London: I.B. Tauris, 2014), pp. 103-104, 125
John Holt and Laura Turney, 'The Singular Journey: South Asian Visual Art in Britain', in Nasreen Ali, Birinder S. Kalra and Salman Sayyid eds., A Postcolonial People: South Asians in Britain (London: C. Hurst & Co., 2006), p. 329-342
David Buckman, Artists in Britain Since 1945 (Bristol: Art Dictionaries, 2006)
David A. Bailey, Ian Baucom, and Sonia Boyce eds., Shades of Black: Assembling Black Arts in 1980s Britain (Durham: Duke University Press, 2005), pp. 199-304
Amal Ghosh and Juginder Lamba, Beyond Frontiers: Contemporary British Art by Artists of South Asian Descent (London: Saffron Books, 2001)
Tania Guha, 'Transition of Riches', Third Text, Vol. 7, Iss. 25, 1993, pp. 81-86
Sonali Fernando, 'Amal Ghosh', in Transition of Riches, exhibition catalogue (Birmingham: Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, 1993), pp. 34-37
Andrea Finn, 'Amal Ghosh: Allegories in Exile', Amal Ghosh, Catalogue No. 10 (New Delhi: Art Heritage Gallery, 1991)
Amal Ghosh ed., In Focus, exhibition catalogue (London: Horizon Gallery, 1990)
Sutapa Biswas, 'Introduction', in Numaish Lalit Kala, exhibition catalogue (Liverpool: Bluecoat, 1988)
Onita Hudson, 'Amal Ghosh at the Horizon Gallery', Art Rage, No. 18, Autumn 1987, p. 41
Michael Horn, 'Amal Ghosh at the Horizon Gallery, Setpember 1987', Bazaar Magazine, No. 3, 1987, pp. 17-18
Amal Ghosh, 'Introduction', in Between Two Cultures, exhibition catalogue (London: Indian Artists UK, 1982)

Public collections

Related organisations

Central Saint Martins (Teacher)
Central School of Arts and Crafts (Student)
City Lit, London (tutor)
Froebel College, University of Roehampton (Teacher)
Hertfordshire College of Art and Design (Student)
Horizon Gallery (Exhibitor)
Indian Artists UK (Founding member)
Indian Arts Council (Member)

Selected exhibitions

Amal Ghosh: Vitreous Enamel Murals, Eastman Dental Hospital, London (1995)
Transition of Riches, Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, Birmingham (1993)
In Focus, exhibition four: Suresh Vedak, Amal Ghosh, Prafulla Mohanti, Ibrahim Wagh, Horizon Gallery, London (1990)
Solo Exhibition, Nottingham Playhouse, Nottingham (1988)
Numaish Lalit Kala, Bluecoat, Liverpool (1988)
Kaleidoscope Group Show, Horizon Gallery, London (1987-1988)
Connections, Horizon Gallery, London (1987)
Solo Exhibition, RIBA, London (1986)
Solo Exhibition, Leinster Fine Arts, London (1982)
Between Two Cultures, Barbican Arts Centre, London (1982)
Summer Exhibition, Royal Academy of Arts, London (1974, 1975, 1977)
Solo Exhibition, Vanview Gallery, London (1969)

Ben Uri archive

Consult items in the Ben Uri archive related to [Amal Ghosh]