Sunanda Bose
An alumna of the Government College of Art & Craft in Kolkata, creates original pen, ink, and watercolor drawings that beautifully capture India’s architectural heritage and cultural moments.
Born in 1949 into a bustling Bengali joint family, Bose grew up in an atmosphere that combined discipline and affectionate chaos. Curiosity wasn’t just encouraged it was almost expected. Her earliest artistic steps began around the age of five, thanks to Noren Banerjee, a neighborhood art professor whose home functioned as her first informal studio. Her formal training at the Government College of Art & Craft, Kolkata she graduated in 1969 was another kind of awakening. She studied under towering figures of the Bengal School and the wave of Indian modernism that followed Independence: Isha Mohammad, Bikash Bhattacharjee, Ganesh Pyne.
Biography
Born in 1949 into a bustling Bengali joint family, Bose grew up in an atmosphere that combined discipline and affectionate chaos. Curiosity wasn’t just encouraged it was almost expected. Her earliest artistic steps began around the age of five, thanks to Noren Banerjee, a neighborhood art professor whose home functioned as her first informal studio. Her formal training at the Government College of Art & Craft, Kolkata she graduated in 1969 was another kind of awakening. She studied under towering figures of the Bengal School and the wave of Indian modernism that followed Independence: Isha Mohammad, Bikash Bhattacharjee, Ganesh Pyne.
Her public re-emergence was poetic: encouraged by her younger son, Partha Sarathi Bose, and family friend Joydeep Shome, her art found a new audience through the platform momsfineart.com, reaching viewers in India, the US, and Canada.
After marrying engineer Jayanta Kumar Bose in 1969, her life gradually shifted toward the responsibilities of family. Like many women of her generation, she paused her career—not because the art stopped calling, but because other voices grew louder. She kept sketching, quietly, almost furtively, but her work remained unseen for decades.
Her public re-emergence was poetic: encouraged by her younger son, Partha Sarathi Bose, and family friend Joydeep Shome, her art found a new audience through the platform momsfineart.com, reaching viewers in India, the US, and Canada.
Bose’s influences extend beyond formal training such as the Anglo-Indian painter Desmond Doyle, seen in her compositions' emotional clarity and stillness. Daily life seeps in too: her love of cooking, gardening, Kolkata’s streets, and the unique colours of monsoon afternoons all thread through her work.
There’s an intimacy in her paintings an attentiveness to small gestures, to objects that seem trivial, to fleeting moments of light. Her art is personal, yet universal, quietly telling stories from one room to another.
Influence & Practice
Bose’s influences extend beyond formal training such as the Anglo-Indian painter Desmond Doyle, seen in her compositions' emotional clarity and stillness. Daily life seeps in too: her love of cooking, gardening, Kolkata’s streets, and the unique colours of monsoon afternoons all thread through her work.
There’s an intimacy in her paintings an attentiveness to small gestures, to objects that seem trivial, to fleeting moments of light. Her art is personal, yet universal, quietly telling stories from one room to another.
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Architectural Echoes & Cultural Narratives
A curated collection of original pen, ink, and watercolor works that celebrate India’s architectural heritage, urban landscapes, and everyday cultural moments. Through intricate detailing and expressive compositions, the artist transforms historic spaces and lived experiences into timeless visual stories.
Present Day
Now, working from her home in Ballygunge, Sunanda paints with renewed certainty. It’s as if those dormant years weren’t an absence but an incubation. Her portfolio continues to grow layered, honest, and deeply rooted in a life that always notices details. Her work stands as a reminder that creativity has its strange timing it hides, waits, and then returns, luminous and unmistakably itself.
