Chittaprosad was born in Naihati, North 24 Parganas District, West Bengal. He was the eldest son to his father Charuchandra Bhattacharya, a government officer, and Indumati Devi, who, in popular records, is mentioned as a homemaker. Indumati seems to have been in possession of literary talents that Chittaprosad greatly admired, as evidenced through one of his letters:

"...you write that which is the truth. The essence of your life experiences stored in your soul find expression in what you write to me. I am often stunned on reading your letters - an eternal victor over sorrow and grief - I do not know how to explain this to you but I am always reminded of Valmiki's Sita when I read your letters.....

Neither you, me, Gouri nor Bholtu - none of us possess a house, nor a car, and neither a sizeable bank-balance or all such possessions - yet - those who do, they come and stand at our doors! The reason it's that which you have written 'I had learnt that the worship of knowledge, arts, music, and the shelter received from them, was infinitely greater [...] I know today the amazing genius in your writing-you are a poet you can breathe life into words as Kalidas and Rabi-thakur could. I am not over-emphasising a bit. You are not Kalidas or Rabi-thakur, you belong to the same social community - you are Indumati Devi... you are not an imitation of anyone else..." (This excerpt is taken from a letter written by Chittaprosad on 8 April 1964, later published by DAG)

Due to his father's transferable job, Chittaprosad grew up in Chattagram (Chittagong in present-day Bangladesh), attending the municipal school. Never having acquired formal training in art from an institution or individual, Chittaprosad was largely a self-taught artist. From 1932-36, he studied at Chittagong Government College for a degree course in humanities. Chittagong in those days (1930-34) was a battlefield where a Guerilla Warfare between British imperialist army and militant nationalists had continued since 1930. Every young man was thus a political suspect.

Sudhi Pradhan, in his reminiscene of Chittaprosad upon his demise wrote:
'Chitta's father thought it wise to send him to Calcutta to get him admitted into the Government Art College. But the principal of the college demanded a declaration by Chitta to the effect that he would not take part in any political activity. Chitta refused to comply. Thereafter, he went to Jaipur (Rajasthan) to study art there. But a severe heat stroke pulled him down so much that he was brought back to Calcutta. His next attempt was to get into the Kala Bhavan of Santiniketan, but the celebrated artist, Nandalal Bose, who was principal of that institution advised Chittaprosad against this since he would have to begin again from the first year where much younger students with little knowledge of painting and drawing were enrolled whereas Chitta was considered much advanced.'

Between 1934-39, as a young student, Chittaprosad was involved in the national movements. The work 'Street Fighter' or 'Little Rebels' dates back to the time of the Quit India movement of August 1942 and marks a critical moment in India's struggle for independence.
The drama taking place in this image is that of an approaching military force against a group of children inscribing Quit India on what looks like a wall or a panel. The tension in this work arises by the sheer imbalance of the situation: the heavily armored military car against the innocence of a group of children inscribing words on a wall in something reminiscent of a childlike painterly act. The structure of the image- the way that architectonics have been placed to organize the scenario-is reminiscent of a stage-like setting where panels are being shifted in order to prepare for the next scene.

While still in college, Chittaprosad came into contact with the rising Communist movement. In 1940, impressed by Chittaprosad's penchant for art, P.C. Joshi, who was then the secretary of the Communist Party, inducted him as an artist for their propaganda and publications.

In 1941, the British launched their 'scorched earth' policy across coastal Bengal which, under the guise of tackling the Japanese threat after the fall of Burma, effectively led to the seizure of surplus rice stocks and the confiscation of boats. This resulted in a severe disruption of the local food supply, ultimately culminating in the Bengal Famine of 1943.

The CPI responded promptly and sent a group of volunteers to Chittagong, of which Chittaprosad was also a part. This encounter with the suffering masses brought him face to face with the rural community and initiated his active engagement in creating posters and drawings for the Party. His works would get published in People's Age. Soon afterwards, the Party sent him (from Bombay, where he had been deputed in the meantime) to Medinipur to document the ravages of the 1943 famine.

The Artist as Witness: Notes on Famine

Chittaprosad's first-hand experience of the famine in Medinipur culminated in the account, Hungry Bengal. As an eyewitness report of his travels through the district in November 1943, Chittaprosad came up with a written text and profuse sketches executed in stark black-and-white. However, the published version carried a select and representative number of twenty-two sketches from among the entire gamut of his famine drawings. But unfortunately very few copies of this first and only edition survived. It is reported that the British banned the book as soon as its printing was completed, and nearly all copies were burnt.
One copy seems to have remained, however, in the safe custody of his family.

In her reminiscence titled Nihsanga Paribrajak (The Lonely Mendicant), Gouri Bhattacharya narrated:
'... A few days later, a parcel reached my mother from Bombay. She showed it to my father, to us all it was my elder brother's book! It was a month-long eye-witness description through words and images, Hungry Bengal. Perhaps that single copy sent to my mother survives as the sole evidence of the awful terror of the times. I have heard that five thousand copies of the book were torched due to British rage. Today I realise that probably the ruling class had no other option to do this if they had to cover up their extreme callousness, because Hungry Bengal is an extremely significant historic document. A first-hand survey report.'

The Artist as Witness: Notes on Famine

'In the crowded railway compartment on my way to Midnapur, the daily scenes on Calcutta's pavements kept coming back to my mind: the procession of famished, helpless living skeletons that once formed Bengal's village society — fishermen, boatmen, potters, weavers, peasants, whole families of them; the five corpses that I counted one morning in the short stretch of road between Amherst Street and Sealdah station, and all the other gruesome sights that had become a part of everyday life in the city,' Chittaprosad wrote in dismay in Hungry Bengal.

Following a simple narrative sequence from Kolkata to Medinipur, then on to the Kanthi subdivision, and the return journey to Kolkata via Medinipur, Hungry Bengal contained a chronological account of the famine-stricken areas. Among other things, he documented his encounters with the famine-ravaged people, their experiences, and, in turn, the indelible impression they left on him, the pathos that it generated.

Accompanied by a Kisan Sabha activist, Tarapada Chakraborty, Chittaprosad proceeded on a long journey on foot from village to village, witnessing the aftermath of a cyclone that had compounded the famine. In one poignant instance, he witnessed a man selling off his family idol and wrote: 'The gods were deserting their poor votaries and going to the abode of the faithful, the fat-bellied Hindu merchant.'

The Artist as Witness: Notes on Famine

As a unified text-image publication, Hungry Bengal possesses a phenomenal documentary finality. One is left to wonder when and how, amidst the laborious trudging on foot from village to village, Chittaprosad found the time to pull out his ink, pen, and brush. He certainly did, but in the text there is only a single casual mention of the simultaneous record through pictures — that a gathering at a landlord's house was engaged in looking at his sketches. Amid such a journey on foot, he could not have spared himself more than an extended moment for each swift record, and a sort of abbreviated notation evolved as a pictorial language out of this compulsion.

The urgency and the necessity to grasp the totality of the disaster brought about a characteristic modification of his line. He captured the essentials of the emaciated forms in swift strokes that terminated in brisk turns and sharp jabs. In places, the strokes became broader, the thick black marks emphasising the skeletal frame beneath the skin. Through such modification, the Hungry Bengal drawings achieved an unflattering directness, almost factual in detail, like a record. Effective as a mode of representation that evolved from the immediacy of the situation, Chittaprosad's drawings produced scathing images of the famine through the very linguistic possibility of such an abbreviated notation.

Early Drawings'

Like most artists, Chittaprosad's œuvre also contains a number of early drawings that employ the linguistic and pictorial conventions of a specific category of realism. These are reflective of his early practice, even if they are markedly different in theme and content from his quintessential later style. They belong to an incipient stage and shed light on his formative years as an artist.

Sanjoy Kumar Mallick has referred to two sketchbooks that serve as important documents for understanding the pattern of Chittaprosad's early activity. The first of these is a June–July 1943 record of Chittagong and may be considered an example of pre-'famine' visual reportage. It begins with drawings from meetings in Delhi and portraits of individuals, and continues with group portraits of families actively involved in left-political struggles in Noapara and Chittagong. The final couple of pictures reveal Chittaprosad's response to members of foreign troops; accompanying notes record how British and American soldiers shared their food with starving boys on the street. Elsewhere, he mentions how a British soldier he encountered at a wayside tea stall expressed his preference for such places over furnished restaurants because these “make him feel quite at home,” and how such scenes are “very common” or “most usual” in the region.

There is a curiously unproblematic quality in the pictures and a somewhat patronisingly supportive tone in the notes, which probably reflects the political ideology he was part of — the call for support to a “people's war,” overlooking the immediate issues of colonial struggle. The drawings in this sketchbook range from swift, instantaneous notes to more patiently studied portraits, and represent Chittaprosad's pictorial language in the making.

Early Drawings'

Another “early work” of Chittaprosad's is a fascinating book of portraits dated 1943. Presented to the CPI's NHQ Commune by the Communist Student Fraction on “Lenin Day” in Calcutta, this sketchbook includes portraits ranging from international Communist leaders to prominent figures in India. Together, they form a visual genealogy: some are rendered in a near-photographic manner, others in a more linear, expressive style. More than just a collection of faces, the album affirms these Indian leaders as rightful heirs in the Communist lineage, asserting their place within the same ideological heritage. The gallery of dignitaries depicted traces a genealogy of political thought and action, and a sense of comradeship within a worldwide movement.

post-Hungry-Bengal' sketches

Hungry Bengal, as a generic nomenclature could represent not just the few images reproduced in the 1943 book, but an umbrella term that that includes Chittaprosad'a innumerable sketches recording the 1943 famine as a whole. While some of these drawings and their relevant descriptiona mostly by the artist himself) were being simultaneously published in the Communist Party journals during 1943-44, the original sketches now exist as independent pages. Many drawings have copious notes on the reverse, or at least the identity of the person, inscribed on for at the back of the drawing.

Judging from the date and place-names accompanying his signature on the pictures, Chittaprosad followed up his 1943 sketches in Midnapore with further pictorial records in Bikrampur, Cox's Bazar, Munshiganj and Chittagong regions of the eastern part of pre-partition Bengal, between June and August 1944. Though it would be valid to call them post-Hungry Bengal' sketches, taken together they effectively constitute a singular, linguistically coherent, body of work. A number of these sketches continue his evolved pictorial notation for human figures, while others indicate a tendency towards greater control and preciseness. Among these are compositions that show his attempt to integrate and situate human figures within a particular setting. filling in the earlier empty background with details of a rural backdrop. In these, a wider diversity of linear strokes attempt to match the observed object reality of human figures, plants and foliage, and the straw-mat and bamboo structures with almost equal attention, and an increased patience.

From 1946 onwards, Chittaprosad seems to have settled more permanently in Bombay, with occasional visits to Calcutta. Both Prabhas Sen and Somnath Hore mention a policy shift that occurred within the political party during 1948–49, and Chittaprosad's subsequent art practice, thus:

“In 1948–49, when the leadership of the Communist Party of India had gone into the hands of a narrow sectarian group, Chittaprosad distanced himself from it and stopped contributing to the party organs. But his creative entity was almost totally aligned with his keen sense of realism and his social consciousness and commitments. Throughout the rest of his life, he remained faithful to his convictions and inclinations. He was hardly capable of using his art to make a living.”

Prabhas Sen has written that, following his detachment from the political party, Chittaprosad had “shut himself up almost like a recluse in his modest room in Andheri, a suburb of Bombay.” Away from the dictates of a political collective, this shift, whether immediately physical or not, marked an important juncture in his artistic as well as political journey. Moving forward, Chittaprosad took to expressing himself through printmaking, particularly linocuts. These prints were largely black and white, with occasional departures into colour.

Propaganda and Caricature

If on the one hand, Chittaprosad's famine drawings reflected a kind of visual reportage and recording function of art, his propaganda posters exude a different kind of preciseness and detail.
While continuing to draw and paint the economic injustices of the war, he also used his skill to bring to attention the armed Telangana movement that began in 1946. In the final days of the fight for independence, and in the postwar years, his propaganda posters that targeted the British, the congress, the landlord, the warmonger, and the imperialist, increasingly focused on the changing balance of power. These images often exude the strong influence of Soviet propaganda art in their shared way of representing a heroic whitewashed reality where strong and forward-marching human bodies are shown with tools and weapons in a quest to conquer the world for the sake of the working class.
While these works are marked by an articulated moral authority and a demonstration of humanity, there also survive a number of works that are, as Sanjoy Mullick rightly points out, "built up entirely on the language of sarcastic caricature"

Flower Studies

Unpretentious directness marks Chittaprosad's studies of flowers. These are not necessarily grand 'still lifes' by virtue of gorgeous settings or elaborate arrangements, but humble and sincere expressions of the artist's love for flowers — their shapes and colours. Arranged in ordinary vessels, cups, and bowls, and placed in a corner of the artist's room, the flowers become objects of affectionate admiration.

In some of these works, Chittaprosad has consciously used contour lines, emphasising the drawn quality of the image and clarifying the structure and shape of the floral forms. In others, he has carefully worked on the backdrop so that the articulated interspaces serve to project the (usually lighter) petals into prominence. And then there are paintings that are freer in treatment and handling, or those that combine elements into compositions of deeper consequence.

Figurative Studies

There also exists in his repertoire a series of what, in art history, is termed the 'female nude'. An analogous starting point for a discussion of paintings based on the human figure would be a reclining nude: simple, straightforward, and faithful to natural appearance. Like the initial portrait study, this picture too exudes a confident ease and warmth, both in the artist's rendering and in the posture of the model. As she lies with her eyes shut, the diagonal of her body, with the right hand parallel to the torso and the left cushioning her head on a white pillow, translates into a relaxed confidence that verges on uninhibited personal intimacy.

The bare, essential strokes of blue, ochre, and white that serve to create the setting concentrate attention on the emphasised contours of the body and the subtle tonal transitions that model the figure in volume. The transformation from here toward pictures based on heightened colour, vigorous brushwork, and the expressive potential of form is evident in a series of oil-on-paper paintings.

One such work is an idyllic, romantic picture, with the nude by the shore complementing the moon in the sky, the broad and wavy orbicular strokes around it radiating a soft glow. The radiant fullness of the figure is firmly modelled. The strokes, too, do not follow the contours smoothly but stand out as forceful marks on the surface. The energetic brushstrokes convey an organic vitality swirling through the painted image.

Landscape Studies

In his landscape studies, Chittaprosad adopted formal devices like Cubistic spatial units, adoptions and adaptations in his quest for a viable personal pictorial language. Under colonial influence, where the choice resided between the academic realism espoused in art school pedagogy on the one hand, and conventions of an emerging national in the 'Bengal School' phenomenon on the other, formal devices of European modern movements must have held the promise and possibility of catapulting out of the strictures of both. The chromatic intensities of colour in Fauve paintings, the translation of inner feelings into expressionistic form and colour, and the formal devices of geometric planes assured by the Cubist language must have assumed a liberating dimension with an immediate prospect of contemporaneity. Chittaprosad's foray into such linguistic modes in his paintings testifies to the liberated sense of artistic independence and individuality a painter longed to profess and practice, beyond constricting notions of ideological adherence alone. For instance, the landscape has been thoroughly transformed into a blazing configuration in a 1969 picture. Although a geometric faceting is evident on the surface, this does not follow strictly analytical Cubist logic, but aspires for the expressive nuances of liberated colour harmonies. While each form occupies its allotted space, the transformation of appearances leads to a bejewelled fantasy for the foreground, while the sky bursts into a conflagration.

Images of Peace and Plenitude

Disillusioned with the functioning of the Party, Chittaprosad nevertheless remained deeply rooted in his faith in humanity and his commitment to its cause. When the World Peace Movement was inaugurated in 1949, the young artist promptly responded to its call. It is unclear exactly how word of the movement reached him, though given P.C. Joshi's involvement with the World Peace Council meetings, a connection seems likely. From this point onward, Chittaprosad's work began to attract attention on the international stage. His images now adopted a new visual language—one of fullness, bounty, and plenitude—in sharp contrast to the stark depictions of struggle and protest that had characterised his earlier work.

The paintings and drawings from this phase depict evocative scenes of family life, lovers, couples, and motherhood, all radiating a sense of serenity and hope.

Images of Peace and Plenitude

Several pictures from this time would classify as Utopic images of rural plenitude and happiness, these also indicate his growing affiliation with the world peace movement, and the affirmative tone may be read as reflecting characteristic of a newly liberated nation. More directly, other examples reflect Chittaprosad's affiliation to the peace process employing the pigeon as a motif and symbol. However, it is possible that some of these may be directly inspired by Russian sources as the setting, accessories, dress, and features appear to suggest. But the extent to which the evolved figural style could be effectively transmuted to a contextually local version would be evident only if one places such images against other

Propaganda and Caricature

These works testify to the artist's critical sense of humour and they also show his talent for observing the shifting powers and dependencies in local politics. One of his iconic cartoons therefore depicts Jawaharlal Nehru accepting money from the barrel of an American gun while the deprived, represented by a mother and child, are reaching out for communist help-represented by a colossal hand and a fist.

In a letter penned at a later date, Chitta vociferated what he construed as the wilful blunders of the Congress:
'What an ill-moment was it when the Congress leaders begged in alms the freedom of this land from the British! Instead of this, how great a mistake, or inhuman in nature, would have been the process of winning a freedom through confrontation-battle and the martyrdom of lives? Having split the country into three through riots, having flooded the land with the blood of helpless millions of children and aged of both the Hindu and Muslim communities, having turned them bankrupt by sowing the poison-plant aided by the British, is this what one calls independence? Has merely the ocean of blood flown? Is it merely an external destruction? Those who have been freed possess an inner-soul, character, education, civilisation, humanity, everything utterly poisoned. That is the living injury to the people of this land. That is why the riot is no longer between Hindus and Muslims any longer Inhabitants of Bengal, Bihar, Assam, Punjab, the South, Marwar, Gujarat, everyone is up in arms in enmity against the other. It is no longer alas golden Bengal any more, today it is 'alas golden India'. Once the people of this country feared the British they were foreigners, tormentors, who had come to plunder this land through the various guiles of cunning, betrayal of trust, and through sheer physical might. Today we are fearing the people of our own country for the very same reasons. Independence, no doubt! Alas independence!'

Little Ballet Troupe and IPTA

During the early 1950s, Chittaprosad worked as a scene painter and costume designer for the Little Ballet Troupe, Bombay, founded by Shanti Bardhan and Gul Bardhan. Formed in 1952, the Little Ballet Troupe produced culturally significant works such as the puppet dance-dramas Ramayana, Human Puppet Ballet, and Panchatantra, which blended traditional Indian themes with contemporary appeal.

Earlier, during the 1940s, Chitta had also designed costumes and stage sets for the Indian People's Theatre Association (IPTA), which was established in Bombay in 1943 by a group of theatre practitioners committed to the anti-fascist and anti-imperialist movement.

The erotic discipline

Where prints are concerned, Chittaprosad explored the theme of the intimate man–woman relationship with great intensity and compositional diversity. In these prints, despite their physical immediacy, the images liberate themselves from any trace of vulgar eroticism. Whether autobiographical or imagined renderings of conjugal union and the fulfilling experiences of family life, these works gain poignancy from the fact that Chittaprosad himself remained unmarried.

Somnath Hore wrote somewhat obliquely about this:

“...If any woman loved him, I would say she did the right thing. One cannot but love such a wonderful man, a man who had so great a heart. Yet, the torment that entails is no less great. Till death, for a long while, this suffering bestowed a great deal on him, but it exacted a lot from him as well. No blame can attach to the tussle between giving and receiving in the life of so sublime an artist.”

Despite the recurrence of the sexual as an aspect of conjugal life, it appears that Chittaprosad believed there was more to a man–woman relationship than physical union or the raising of a family. Characteristically, therefore, in one of his prints, a mature couple is shown engrossed in reading. This becomes a statement of empowerment—of a woman's claim to knowledge and, albeit quietly, of her breaking away from socially defined roles within the seclusion of the home. The home and the world meet, and meet harmoniously, as the man's careful attention guides her toward the open pages before them, with the globe in the foreground symbolising the wide, open world of knowledge.

Works in Colour

“In the early fifties, I occasionally met him in Calcutta. He used to stay with Khaled Chowdhury and Prabhas Sen at their Park Circus residence. Whenever we learnt he was in Calcutta, Reba and I would go and see him. One day he came in with a huge bunch of gladioli from New Market and said, 'I am going to paint. A painting sold today for three hundred rupees. I used all the money to buy this bouquet and oil paints and brushes.' Spending the entire amount like that as soon as it was earned was something we could not even imagine doing. During that period, he did quite a lot of work in oil at that house. I remember, he moved away from the subject of war and famine and worked on paintings of historical and secular themes. Whenever he did something new, he would write from Bombay and tell me about it…”

This account of Chittaprosad, vividly recounted by his contemporary Somnath Hore, sheds light on the impulsive temperament of the passionate artist that Chittaprosad was. While renowned for his monochrome works, he was also irresistibly drawn to painting in a full range of colours. This realm of polychrome images suggests a significant thematic shift in his artistic journey.

Nurturing Transnational Friendships and Collaboration

In 1963, an exhibition of linocuts, drawings, and photographs by Chittaprosad was held at the Hollar Gallery in Prague, Czechoslovakia. Shortly after the exhibition, the National Gallery in Prague acquired thirty-eight works on paper from the artist for their collection.

Around the time of India's Independence, Czechoslovakia too had undergone a political shift when, after the Communist victory of 1948, bourgeois democracy was replaced by people's democracy. Nationalisation and Communist control thereafter meant that all avant-garde art was shunned in favour of ideologically aligned work, particularly art that mimicked the lexicon of the Socialist Realist style. As a former ally of the CPI and one whose work often reflected that pictorial language, Chittaprosad's art met the necessary ideological criteria.

At the heart of what connected Chittaprosad with Czechoslovakia, however, lay personal friendships—relationships founded on shared cultural and ideological interests, and on mutual admiration. The first Czech to take an interest in Chittaprosad was the Indologist Miloslav Krása (1920–2004), who had briefly studied at Allahabad University. Krása met Chittaprosad in the late 1950s, though their correspondence predated that meeting. As early as 1957, Chittaprosad began contributing regularly to Nový Orient, a journal published since 1945 by the Czech Oriental Institute. In addition, his works also appeared in New Orient Bimonthly.

In these publications, his deep empathy with the hopes and suffering of common people often translated into poignant representations of the plight and oppression of children. Another well-wisher and comrade of Chittaprosad was František Salaba, who served as assistant to the Trade Commissioner of Czechoslovakia in Bombay between 1954 and 1957. The two met at a rehearsal of the Little Ballet Troupe. Both Krása and Salaba extended unwavering support and solidarity to Chitta's creative pursuits throughout the rest of his life.

Of Puppets and Marionettes: Chitta's Khelaghar

An interesting chapter in Chittaprosad's artistic career was his experiment with puppetry. A fine storyteller, he would often gather children from the slums around his Andheri residence in the evenings to tell them stories of hope and laughter. The idea of creating a puppet theatre for these children came to him through the encouragement of a Czech amateur puppeteer—likely in the early 1960s—who had been living in Bombay for several years.

Chittaprosad learned the techniques of Czech puppetry from this friend, Mr. F. Salaba, who also gifted him a small puppet stage. He studied puppet shows and methods of puppet-making in different parts of India and then fused these traditions with his own creative experiments. After the initial trials, he founded his puppet theatre Khelaghar for the children in his neighbourhood. In his letters, Chittaprosad wrote about how his room was often overcrowded with marionettes. He also organized a few public performances with the help of friends, though these required full-time commitment and financial resources that were beyond his means. Nevertheless, he continued to perform, creating shows for his own joy, for friends, and for the children nearby. He made his remarkable puppets himself—out of wood, coconut shells, ropes, strings, and cotton—designed the stage, wrote the scripts, and took part in the performances.

The puppets were original, expressive, and capable of the most unusual movements, animated by the magical pull of strings from Chitta's fingers. During one visit, he kept me enthralled for an hour with a triangular conversation, play-acting, and dance between my enchanted twelve-year-old niece, a few puppets, and Chittaprosad himself.

Of Puppets and Marionettes: Chitta's Khelaghar

In a letter addressed to his friend, Murari, Chitta recounted the difficulties of running what he had proclaimed as the "first modern puppet theatre in India":
Salaba left on the 27th of last month. Before leaving, he had delivered the puppet stage to my residence on the 23rd. I have become addicted to puppets since then. I have already composed two plays in the meanwhile. Number one, Shakuntala. Entirely rearranged, complete in three acts, a matter of about one-and-a-quarter hours. The last act is entirely mine, a little bit of Kalidasa in the initial two. Number two, a fifteen-minute sarcastic drama. Shakuntala won't be possible right away, need plenty of manpower and effort [...] I have learnt much and am still learning plenty [...] The lack of manpower is the most important factor. This is not a one-man job — one needs a team, both boys and girls. Salaba did construct a committee before leaving. I have named my theatre Khelaghar... [one of the members is] an engineer. He is preparing the torso of the puppets, trunks with legs, in the factory following the Czech technique. I will supply the heads. I have already produced some five such whole figures... Since I am still under the spell of foreign prototypes, the puppets continue to follow a naturalistic schema. But other fresh plans are filling my imagination; I intend to 'puppetise' the folk wood and terracotta toys, including Shakuntala. I know I might end up in a conflict with the committee, but will have to exert my legal powers or other measures as the director. Till I die, I will do as my heart pleases.

Should you come now you will simply be surprised. The puppet stage glows exactly beneath the R.I.N. painting, my 'children' staring out wide-eyed at all, whichever direction you may choose to cast your eyes on...

Children's book illustrations

While conscious of the oppression of children that Chittaprosad promptly represented through his prints, he also illustrated stories and books for children.
In a print titled 'Kingdom of Rasagolla'; the text incorporated within the layout of the print mentions 'Bengali folk tale retold and illustrated by Chittaprosad'. There are some more prints representing three pictures that are evidentially part of the same project. One of these shows a brahmin dancing with a pot full of sweets, which, given the independent self-sufficiency of the visual (without any text incorporated in the design) may be considered an illustration within the book rather than the cover. It exudes a more jovial mood. A third variation for the cover shows an enthroned king. The stern expression is a feigned camouflage for a story about a kingdom of sweets, and this antithetical strategy of form sets the specific tone of the picture.

Children's book illustrations

Chittaprosad's choice of themes for children will be apparent from his selection of texts by Hans Christian Anderson: 'The Little Mermaid' (date inscribed November 27th 1968), 'The Angel' (dated November 28th 1968) and 'Holger the Dane'. Using just the cover pages, one cannot delve deep into an analysis of text-image relationships, but they do reveal the formal abbreviation and compositional simplicity of these pictures highlighting the artist's notion of a language specifically oriented to communicate with children as prospective readers of these books.

For texts where multiple pictures exist, it is possible to arrange them into a sequential order. In a set of pictures illuminating a text titled 'Fate of a False Friend', we become aware not only of a pictorial language specifically suited to the narration of a particular kind, but also the possibility within such a language to be able to literally narrate the story through visuals alone. These pictures assume the dimension of a parallel and self-sufficient visual text, almost transliterating the story into a connected series of images.

Children's book illustrations
Significant from the point of view of children's book design is a series of prints constituting the pages of a book titled Tell Me a Story Please. These pages recount the story of Christ through the voices of various animals that can be associated with different episodes from his life. Once again, we encounter Chittaprosad's thematic choice of the life of Christ for a pictorial project—a choice that raises the question of whether his interest in this theme stems from its religious significance or from the human aspect of the life it portrays. Setting that aside for the moment, if we consider the print in formal terms, it is Chittaprosad's use of linoleum for both image and text—creating a visual unity and coherence across the designed page—that assumes particular importance.

The choice of animals as narrators is equally striking. A recluse by temperament, Chittaprosad's letters reveal his deep affection for and comfort in the company of animals. In a 1969 letter to his mother, he wrote:

“I am quite at peace living with these [animals]. They do not have a discrepancy between what they say and what they do; unlike human beings, they do not say one thing and mean another. Bhulo does not like being tied to the chain—he wants to roam the streets, just like Bhutni-mother—but nevertheless, at least once at the end of the day, he comes and places his face on my lap to express something, the name of which I do not know—gratitude, or is it love, or something else? Whatever it may be, the heart fills with the touch of an enormously pious and deep feeling. He personally expresses his acknowledgment of my tender care toward him. I can clearly feel that he has not come solely for food. I have hardly experienced any comparable acknowledgment from human acquaintances. Dear Mother, all human acquaintances appear to love me, but they imply that I should be grateful for their affection. The fact that I too love someone does not seem to hold any significance for them. I am not saying this out of anger or hurt, Mother dear. I know very well that no one has reason to be concerned about my love, affection, or respect. Only this—that I have been amazed, rather overwhelmed, by Bhulo's gesture. And Mini keeps guarding me day and night, just as a mother takes care of her children...”
(Letter from Chittaprosad to his mother, 1969. Quoted in Singh, Kishore. Yours Chitta. 1st ed., DAG, 2011.)

Angels without a Fairytale

Chittaprosad is known to have produced a set of linocut prints that were published as a collection by the Danish UNICEF Committee in 1969 under the title Angels Without Fairy-tales. Back in 1965, these pictures—depicting children as working members of poor and oppressed families—spoke of the deprivation and denial of childhood, and thus carried a distinctly critical edge. The series was originally dedicated to the International Conference in Defence of Children. In all these prints, however, the language of expression is notably different, for the forms do not convey a sense of unease, pain, or loss of innocence.

Sanjoy K. Mallick raises a critical question in relation to this series:

“A strictly ideological position would perhaps brand these pictorial statements as utopian and idealistic; but what if we shift our point of reference and consider these prints to have been produced for a different consumer—that these were pictures not just intended to be about children, but for them? Would it be entirely impossible that Chittaprosad was reinventing pictorial fairy tales for children, aspiring to give back to the 'angels' their rightful claim to the dreams that fill childhood?”

Angels without a Fairytale

Sanjukta Sunderason, while speaking to the National Gallery of Prague about the series 'Angels Without Fairytales', draws attention to the voacubary of his folk form:
"[There was] a recognition—of a vocabulary of folk form—the iconography has striking similarities with a broader socialist book illustration genre [...] Chittaprosad made these works in the early-1950s, for the Youth Congress in Vienna and WPC. We know that these images were not in circulation, and were published only in the late 1960s through his friend Erik Stinus, as 'Angels without Fairy Tales'. I imagine that these were his prized possessions, particularly as ones where he combines two of his dear interests—labour and displacements, and a radical folk-popular form. Childhood to Chittaprosad, I would argue, becomes a generative site where both the promises and the tragedies of a young nation become active—as contradiction. It is also interesting to note how the portrayal of children enslaved is a radically different imagination from a Nehruvian idea of children as the beacon of the new nation."

The Ramayana Series

In a letter addressed to his sister Gouri, Chittaprosad wrote of the frantic pace with which he was working on a series of prints on the Indian epic Ramayana:
There's no new news from my side either. I am expectantly looking forward to some money — I am doing the Ramayana pictures, sometimes four in a week, at other times only one in a fortnight. Those who have seen these have praised them — however, none among them will pay to buy it when it is published as a book. Another five or six pictures and the Bala Kanda will be complete — that is, up to the marriage of Rama and Sita. Going by the current rate, I suppose the entire year will be required to finish the Ramayana.

The Ramayana Series

"During the last decade of Chittaprosad's life he had embarked on a project of illuminated stories of the Indian epics Ramayana and Mahabharata illustrated and written in Bengali verses composed by himself, while constantly fighting his failing health. He did not have time to complete the project but I had the fortune of being shown by him some pages with beautiful illustrations on one page and the text in verses in old Bengali calligraphic style on the opposite page. I have not seen any of these pages or his puppets after his death. If found they should be collected in a museum", wrote Prabhas Sen.

However the 'project' referred to here survives both in the form of a large-sized drawing book that consists of the initial draft, with pencil drawn pictures and texts arranged in sequence like a dummy copy of the final version, a pre-press stage for publication, as well as a selection of the prints themselves. Though the draft-book survives, it does so in an extremely delicate state of brittle, termite-eaten fragments. It is possible to turn over only the first few pages. Though Chittaprosad may not have completed the Ramayana project, he appears to have visualised at least the initial section of the epic and certainly did begin working on the blocks and pulled a number of prints in a systematic sequence, following the epic almost chronologically in its initial episodes.

The Bangladesh War

Responding to the human travails and frenzy caused by the Bangladesh War in 1971, Chittaprosad made works that, on the one hand, situated the mutilation and sacrifice of the body at the centre of the calamity, and on the other, highlighted the resilience to stand up against the tyranny of those in power. One of his paintings generates pathos in the viewer in the way the bodies are haplessly strangulated and oppressed in the composition. It is reminiscent of one of the greatest anti-war pantings of Picasso, the 1937 painting Guernica.

However, Chitta firmly believed in the resistance of people's spirits. Hence we see in another painting a moving portrayal — an almost allegorical representation — of what could possibly be Chitta's own version of a 'Bangla Mata'. Like the Goddess of Plenty, she holds a stalk of grain in one hand and is surrounded by symbolic figures: a baul musician, a child that lightens the dark path by holding an illuminated oil lamp, a child who holds a book and looks fearlessly into the muzzle of a cannon pointed at them, another child resisting shots of a gun with the music of his flute. A woman atop the flames of fire seizes a death-like figure — a skeleton donning an army-general's uniform — and triumphs over him: a triumph, essentially, of good over evil.

Posthumous exhibition

Chittaprosad passed away in November 1979 in Calcutta, in the home of his sister, Gouri Chatterjee. In quick succession, Miloslav Krása speedily organized exhibitions of his works across Czechoslovakia: in October 1979, an exhibition was mounted at the Mladá Fronta Gallery in Prague, followed by one in Litoměřice in March 1980. In 1981, a retrospective featuring works acquired by the National Gallery in Prague took place in Brno.

Having lived in relative obscurity even until the last decade of his life, Chitta had written to his sister:
“From the outside it appears that your dadamoshai is a famous person these days, foreigners are purchasing his pictures—sending money. There's the glitter of lamps in the outhouse and emptiness inside. Anyone who sees me today gets a little shocked—they see my exterior body. But if they speak for a while and see my works, they forget it—I mean, they can see another person within the ruins of this body. There's enough light within the broken lantern, still enough fire, sufficient laughter.” (Letter from Chittaprosad to his sister. Quoted in Singh, Kishore. Yours Chitta. 1st ed., DAG, 2011.)


Sanjukta Sunderason remarks on the marginality that he faced within the Indian art market:
“It is very important to note, in my opinion, Chittaprosad's marginality in postcolonial India; until, in fact, a private art market–driven salvage in the late 1990s and through the 2000s, which led up to a major retrospective from the Delhi Art Gallery (DAG) in 2011. His reputation in the 1950s–1960s is limited to left-wing circles, that too among close friends; he himself does not seem to circulate in the art circuits of Bombay—in fact, he is cynical of the market-driven art world [...] Chittaprosad's letters to his mother noting his maltreatment from Mulk Raj Anand himself reveal his marginal existence amidst the circuits of Nehruvian socialism and the national-modern aesthetic. So his engagement with Czechoslovakia is, in fact, a rich field to explore aesthetic dialogues via friendships and what can be seen as 'alternate internationalisms'—that steer clear (perhaps consciously too) of nation-state–driven cultural apparatuses or institutional modernisms. It is a private world, and a melancholic one. Chittaprosad's own cynicism, one must admit, plays a role in this; he seems to occupy a curious position of both seeking and refusing recognition. The question of the postcolonial left is critical here too.”