Roots
25 April 1933 — 24 July 2006
My Grandmother's Legacy in Indian Embroidery: Artist and Founder of Rekha Chitram, a Fine Arts Institute in Kolkata
Indian women in 1933 were not supposed to have careers. Indian women in 1980 were not supposed to found institutions. Indian women working in embroidery were not supposed to call what they did fine art. My paternal grandmother did all three.
Rekha Chakraborty took a folk craft that had lived for generations in the hands of women across Bengal and called it fine art. She named her technique Thread on Canvas, built a place to teach it, and sent her work into the permanent collections of the Lenin Museum in Moscow, the Dimitrov Museum in Sofia, the Tagore Centre at the Indian High Commission in London, the Gandhi Memorial in Berlin, the Goethe Museum in Germany, and the Havana Museum in Cuba. In 1991 she exhibited at Humboldt University in Berlin, and in 1996 she toured Europe with shows in Liverpool and London. The institution she founded with my maternal grandfather, Jyoti Bikas Chatterjee, is still standing, my father runs it, the technique she invented is still taught there, and the work she made has outlasted her, which is the kind of work I want to do.
She was vocal for local long before that became a phrase, working in handloom and thread at a time when both were considered simply what women did at home rather than something that belonged in a museum or carried a name. Today the country speaks of indigenous craft, of supporting local artisans, of reviving traditional practice, but my grandmother spent her entire life inside that work when nobody was speaking about it at all, a pioneer in a discipline that did not yet recognise itself as one.
Rekha Chakraborty (Bengali: রেখা চক্রবর্তী; 25 April 1933 — 24 July 2006) was an Indian embroidery artist based in Kolkata who founded Rekha Chitram, an art gallery and cultural institution in Salt Lake. She worked in a technique she called Thread on Canvas, using cloth as canvas, needles as brushes, and coloured threads in place of pigment to create portraits, landscapes, and figurative compositions.
Chakraborty established Rekha Chitram in 1980, initially operating from the first floor of CA Market in Salt Lake before relocating to its present location at CK Block in 1991. The institution has held annual art exhibitions since its first year of operation. It currently functions as a gallery, art school, and cultural centre offering courses in embroidery, fashion design, painting, photography, classical and folk dance, and music.
Chakraborty received the Soviet Land Nehru Award from the Soviet Embassy in India for her embroidered portrait of Vladimir Lenin, which is held by the Lenin Museum, Moscow. Her embroidered portraits are held in collections including the Dimitrov Museum in Sofia, the Tagore Centre at the Indian High Commission in London, the Gandhi Memorial in Berlin, and the Goethe Museum in Germany.
Early life and education
Rekha Chakraborty was born on 25 April 1933 in Bikrampur, Dhaka, in the Bengal Presidency of British India (present-day Bangladesh). She lost her father when she was still a child and was raised by her mother, who was an artist herself and who brought up Rekha and her siblings on her own. Her elder brother trained as a doctor and was already practising in Calcutta by the time the family made the move before the Partition of Bengal in 1947.
The family came with little. Rekha was studious and made her way through government schools and colleges on the strength of her merit. She completed her undergraduate degree at Lady Brabourne College, Kolkata, affiliated to the University of Calcutta, and subsequently joined the Usha Company in Kolkata.
Career
Chakraborty began teaching embroidery and painting from a rented space at C.A. Market, Salt Lake, before formally establishing Rekha Chitram in 1980. The institution moved to its present location at CK 47, Sector II, Salt Lake, in 1991, and was inaugurated on 22 February 1991 by Pandit Ravi Shankar.
Chakraborty described Thread on Canvas as a technique in which colour choices must be determined at the outset, since once a thread is applied it cannot be modified. Her son and successor at Rekha Chitram, Arun Chakraborty, has described the medium as a traditional folk craft that has transformed into fine art, with the technique passed down through generations within the family.
Subjects of her portraits include Kishore Kumar, Bibhutibhushan Bandyopadhyay, Sukumar Ray, S. D. Burman, Nirad C. Chaudhuri, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, Michael Jackson, Indira Gandhi, Mother Teresa, Lady Diana, Amartya Sen, and Leo Tolstoy. The earliest dated work in the gallery's collection is a painting of a young tribal woman from 1947.
Recognition
Soviet Land Nehru Award
The Soviet Land Nehru Award was instituted in 1965, named after the Soviet Land magazine and Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, and presented by the Soviet Embassy in India to recognise contributions to Indo-Soviet cultural relations. Chakraborty received the award from Mr. Vezirov, Consulate General of the Soviet Union, at Gorky Sadan, Kolkata, in recognition of her embroidered portrait of V.I. Lenin held by the Lenin Museum, Moscow.
Other recognition
In 1979, President Neelam Sanjiva Reddy invited Chakraborty to Rashtrapati Bhavan, New Delhi, in recognition of her work in embroidery. Filmmaker Satyajit Ray also issued a personal written commendation to the institution.
Visitors and collectors
The Rekha Chitram archive records visits and presentations involving Prime Ministers Indira Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi and I. K. Gujral; Presidents Pranab Mukherjee and Neelam Sanjiva Reddy; Nobel Laureates Mother Teresa and Amartya Sen; Pandit Ravi Shankar; Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat; Chief Minister Jyoti Basu; and Governors Viren J. Shah and Gopal Krishna Gandhi.
Other visitors and recipients of works recorded in the archive include filmmaker Gulzar, actors Jaya Bachchan, Soumitra Chatterjee and Ashok Kumar, dancer Amala Shankar, swimmer Arati Saha, poets Sankha Ghosh and Nirendranath Chakraborty, author Taslima Nasrin, physicist Mani L. Bhaumik, former police officer Kiran Bedi, and former Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit.
The 2017 annual exhibition at Rekha Chitram was attended by poets Sankha Ghosh and Alokranjan Dasgupta and artist Rabin Mondal, with Dasgupta describing the institution's role in supporting independent artistic practice.
Works in collections
Chakraborty's embroidered works entered the permanent collections of institutions across multiple countries.
Death
Chakraborty died on 24 July 2006 at Rekha Chitram, Salt Lake, Kolkata, at the age of 73, following a period of illness. She had run the institution she founded for over two decades. Her son, Arun Kumar Chakraborty, who had been developing Thread on Canvas alongside her since the 1980s, took over as principal. The annual exhibitions she had begun in 1980 continued without interruption.
Rekha Chitram
Rekha Chitram is a gallery, art school, and cultural institution in Salt Lake, Kolkata. What began as a single rented room at CA Market has grown into the three-storey building it occupies today at CK 47, Sector II. It holds an annual exhibition of embroidered paintings and student work, a tradition maintained every year since the institution's founding in 1980. Courses taught include machine, hand and batik embroidery, fashion design, painting, photography, Bharatanatyam, Kathak, Indian classical music, piano, synthesizer, and guitar.
Rekha Chitram was co-founded with Shri Jyoti Bikas Chatterjee, who joined Chakraborty as the institution's marketing and public relations lead. Before partnering with her in 1980, Chatterjee had built a career as a sales manager at a Russian automobile company. While Chakraborty led the artistic vision and developed the Thread on Canvas technique, Chatterjee built the visibility, press relationships, and outreach channels that carried Rekha Chitram's work across India and shaped the institution's national reach over the decades that followed.
The institution is currently led by Arun Kumar Chakraborty, who joined his mother in developing the Thread on Canvas technique and continues as principal. Under his direction, Rekha Chitram has produced documentary films on figures including K. G. Subramanyan, Rabin Mondal, Sunil Das, and Amlan Datta.
Notable works
Exhibitions
Rekha Chitram has held annual exhibitions since its founding in 1980.
In her own words
Some ask me about my objective in life. I am neither a good speaker nor a good writer. If my paintings have expressed something at all, this is my message. Human life is full of weal and woes, sufferings and blessings, and my life is no exception. An artist is to make his or her sorrows beam in light of brightness. Success in such expression is our attainment and bliss.
I have had to struggle hard to reach the present position along a long path of life. I entered the battlefield with thread and needle and indomitable courage. I had been inspired by indigenous tradition, exercises of rural art by my mother. I desired to paint the life I observed in the battlefield and those whom I met there as my saviors, in all their moments and aspects of characters, in various hues and forms. Sometimes, my works, surpassing the object person and his surroundings, have become universal.
I did not surrender to darkness nor did I give it indulgence in my creativity, because I know that at the proper moment, the lamp less night is flooded by the pious of the dawn. My gratitude to those who lent me courage in my struggle, wished me well and endowed me with blessings knows no bounds. There is constant warfare in the realm of creator, and no art becomes real art if there is no faith.
I wish, I cherish that faith in my life forever.
References
- Chatterjee, Jayeeta (2 April 2019). "This Art Gallery In Salt Lake Is Also A Cultural Institution". WhatsHot Kolkata, Times Internet.
- Kanjilal, Bharati (7 April 2017). "Annual brush with canvas & colour". The Telegraph, ABP Group, Kolkata.
- "About Us". Art Paradize. Archived from the original on 20 March 2025.
- Photograph caption: "Sm. Rekha Chakraborty receiving the Soviet Land Award from Mr. Vezirov, Consulate General Calcutta at Gorky Sadan." Physical photograph, Rekha Chitram archive, Kolkata.
- Arun Kumar Chakraborty, ed. Discovery of the Dormant Arun. Rekha Chitram, Kolkata, 1980.