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Acclaimed realist painter Bikash Bhattacharya died in a Kolkata nursing home on Monday morning following a prolonged illness. He was 66.
He was admitted to the nursing home last month following a brain stroke after having spent three years in a wheelchair in a partial paralytic state.
A recipient of Lalit Kala Akademy and Academy of Fine Arts awards, Bhattacharya was born into a north Kolkata family in 1940.
He is survived by his wife, a son and a daughter.
Considered to be among one of the finest Indian painters who earned wide accolades in the watercolour medium, Bhattacharya was a member of the Society of Contemporary Artistes along with Somnath Hore and Ganesh Pyne.
He was also a former member of the Lalit Kala Akademy. A former student of Indian Art College, he shot into limelight in the '60s with his 'Doll' series of paintings before making his artistic journey by giving life on canvas the travails, tribulations and unrest in society.
His series capturing the time of the Naxal movement and the painting of Indira Gandhi with a blurred and white face after her murder earned wide accolades. Among the painter's well known works is also the series on prostitutes.
Some of his works are kept in Delhi modern art gallery, Bombay art gallery, Baroda art college museum, Birla Academy, Kolkata, and in a number of art galleries abroad.
Many of his colleagues in the art fraternity visited the nursing home following his death.
Paying glowing tributes to him, noted painters Bijon Choudhury, Prakash Karmakar, Samir Aich, Manoj Dutta and Bimalendu Kundu condoled Bhattacharya's death.