Rabin Mondal

[citation needed] Rajendra Narayan Mondal (1792 to 1860), Dewan of Narayanganj in Bengal was an ancestor, and one of his sons Rajendranarayan received the title of Raja.

[citation needed] Though the Mondal family had a highly educated and upper-middle-class background, Howrah was known for its overcrowded slums and impoverished migrant workers who toiled in various grimy industries.

The couple settled down in their Howrah residence but eventually moved to Salt Lake in 1996 when a bunch of artistes formed a co-operative society and was granted a 14-cottah plot by the then finance minister of West Bengal, Ashok Mitra.

[6] In 1964 Rabin and what is now known as the "Group of Eight", (which consisted of Nikhil Biswas, Prokash Karmakar, Bijan Chowdhury, Gopal Sanyal, Bimal Banerjee, Mahim Rudra, Gunbritt Svensson and Mondal himself) formed the Calcutta Painters.

These are perhaps Mondal's best known works, depicting tragic looking figures, seemingly suffering from paranoia and fear, yet ironically termed kings and queens.

[3] Though some of Mondal's best canvases have an obvious cubist influence, stylistically his work has been predominantly expressionist, a reaction to the tormented humanity that surrounded him in Calcutta, and the tragic events of his formative years.