‘Colours of Home’: This graphic biography of artist Ganesh Haloi for children is a treat for adults

Imagine a little boy and a huge river. A land seemingly folded into water, the two merging as one. Plants, animals, and fish are all part of a seamless environment, with the water overwhelming the lush green of the land. A quiet quotidian life, with its seasonal rhythm, lived out on the banks – with the boy both a witness and an eager participant in its unfolding.

This is chapter one of Ganesh Haloi: Colours of Home, a graphic biography written by Likla Lall and illustrated by Eva Sánchez Gómez. The latest in the “The Art Exploration Series” by ART1ST Books, published in association with Kiran Nadar Museum of Art and Akar Prakar, it follows biographies of Abanindranath Tagore, Jamini Roy, Somnath Hore, SH Raza, Ambadas, Meera Mukherjee, Ram Kumar, and Ganesh Pyne.

The artist

Haloi is one of the most distinguished artists of independent India, one of the few surviving from the generation that witnessed the Partition and was profoundly shaped by its aftermath. He is primarily known for his abstract landscapes and innerscapes. He has also been a beloved teacher (from 1963 to 1993) at the Government College of Art and Craft, Calcutta, an institution where he studied in the early 1950s. Beginning his practice by...

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