Ganesh Haloi

Ganesh Haloi, born on 9 February 1936 in Jamalpur (present-day Bangladesh), migrated to Calcutta after Partition. He studied at the Government College of Arts and Crafts from 1952–56, developing a style of sophisticated elegance. After graduating, he joined the Archaeological Survey of India and documented the Ajanta cave paintings from 1957–63. Beginning as a landscape painter, Haloi evoked tender, verdant vistas inspired by childhood memories, erasing human presence to create a sublime dialogue between land, sky, air, and water. By the mid-1970s, he was recognised as an accomplished landscape painter. His Metascape series of 1978 marked a transition from realism to abstraction, contributing significantly to contemporary painting that conveys nature’s poetry beyond visual documentation. He lives in Kolkata.