Sunil Madhav Sen - UNTITLED (Folk Icon)

Sunil Madhav Sen (1910 - 1979)

Mixed Media on Paper

22.5 x 16.5 Inches

Signed Upper Right

Rooted in the red soil of Rarh Bengal, Sunil Madhav Sen’s oeuvre revisits his childhood in Bankura, a region whose village traditions and rugged terrain shaped him far beyond any formal training. As Prasanta Daw notes in Sunil Madhav Sen-er Rooplok, his earliest spark came from watching Ananta Patua shape clay idols, a memory that seeded his lifelong fascination with primal forms and ritual imagery.

In this piece, drawn directly on newspaper, the mask-like face and animal motifs echo village wall murals and kantha stitches, yet sharpened by Sen’s modernist lines and bold colour blocks. His choice of newspaper as a surface shows his instinct for unconventional materials, merging everyday textures with the layered, tactile presence found across his work.

Simple yet striking, it holds folk memory and modern form together.