A Biographical Note on 

Odia Artist Bibhuti Bhusan Kanungo

Ramakanta Samantaray and Sailen Routray

Bibhuti Bhusan Kanungo
(9 December 1921 - 3 September 1983)

A premier institution in Orissa for art education, B. K. College of Art and Crafts, was started in 1984. Very few people know these days that B.K. stands for ‘Bibhuti Kanungo’, a celebrated applied artist of Orissa who made several pioneering efforts towards creating a base for education and training in the field of art. He was born in SAlagAn village in Cuttack district.

He studied in Government Art School, Calcutta and finished his education there in 1943. After returning to Cuttack in the same year he started doing applied work like book covers etc. In this period he also collaborated with Muralidhar Tali, another Odia artist of note of the times, to create an art school in 1947. 

When the Government of Orissa (GoO) started producing textbooks for schools in 1950s and 1960s, Bibhuti Bhusan Kanungo played a central role in illustrating these books. He worked as a designer in the Department of Textiles of the GoO for some time and left his job in 1968. 

During this period he started a studio called ‘RuperekhA’ in Mohammadia Bazar, Cuttack for undertaking applied art projects. He also illustrated the iconic Odia satirical magazine ‘NiakhuntA’ edited by Godabarisa Mohapatra (1898-1965). The cartoons and other illustrations that he did for this magazine are yet to identified and documented in a proper fashion. 

Bibhuti Kanungo was also a pioneer in making blocks for printing presses in Orissa. He founded a company called ‘Art Reproductions’ for the same that also had a printing press.

He also started a publishing house (with other artists such as Asit Mukherji, Muralidhar Tali and  Siba Panigrahi etc.) called ‘PAnchAli Publications’ that for the first time reproduced in texts, Odia pattachitras in multi-colour, through block prints. 

'Sachitra RAmAyana' published by PAnchAli was first such text that carried multi-colour block prints of traditional pattachitras as illustrations. In 1975 he took the lead in a collaborative effort, (finally abortive) for starting an art college in Cuttack.

Bibliography

Pathy, Dinanath. 2013. College GadhibAra Bela. Bhubaneswar: Divya Prakashani.

‘Silpi Bibhuti Kanungo: Eka SinghAbalokana’. Rangarekha – Fifth Issue. Edited by Jagdish Chandra Kanungo. A Publication of Orissa Lalit Kala Academy. [The name of the author and the date of publication are not given]