Important landmarks in Sakti Burman’s career

Here are some important milestones of celebrated artist Sakti Burman's glittering career:

• Born in Kolkota in 1935, he studied at Kolkata’s Government college of Arts and Crafts and later at Paris-based Ecole Nationale des Beaux Arts. Since 1954, he has held several one-man exhibitions in India and abroad.
• His works have been included in several group participations such as the Paris Biennales of 1963, 1965 and 1967; the Salon d’Automne, Grand Palais, Paris 1975 and 1994; Peintres Visionnaires, Belford Museum, Belford; ‘Contemporary Indian Art’, Yokohoma 1993; ‘Contemporary French Painters’, Iran 1975; Fifth International Triennale, New Delhi, 1982; ‘Sigmund Freud's Interpretation of Dreams’, Historische Museum der Stadt Wien, Vienna, 2000; ‘Art of Bengal, Past and Present 1850 – 2000’, NGMA, Mumbai and CIMA, Kolkata, 2001; ‘Faces of Indian Art’, Art Alive, New Delhi.
• Along with painting in oils and watercolor, he has produced several graphics including an album of sixteen limited edition lithographs illustrating Rabindranath Tagore's Gitanjali. After dabling with wood carving in the early 1970's the artist produced and exhibited a substantial body of bronze sculpture in 2009.
• There are works from his days in Paris in the 1960s that reflect the fascinating French landscape, its lovable people and also the influence of Picasso and Matisse on him. Another key phase is the 1960s was when he visited India with his wife, Maite Delteil, also an artist. The two had got married in 1962. He wanted to show her the country’s romantic side of India, so the two went to Ajanta-Ellora, Khajurao and Puri. When they returned to Paris, the artist could not simply wipe out those images of the Khajuraho temples and the Ajanta frescos from his memory.
• This was the time when his artworks took on the peculiar peeling fresco feel, transcending time. 'These images as if got implanted in him and they came back in his work, so the symbols of Europe mingled with those of India. Another important phase of his work belongs to the late 1990s and the 2000s. It reflects the very times that we live in.