Lalit Kala Academi wants to promote art & artists of Bihar

The Times of India Reports :

PATNA: Lalit Kala Academi (National Academy of Art), a wing of the ministry of culture, government of India, wants to enter into a long term
partnership with the Bihar government for the promotion of traditional art and artists. It has decided to associate with the Bihar government mainly for preserving and documentation of various regional art forms, particularly dying arts. In the first phase, the academi has decided to publish masterpieces of Patna Museum to highlight its rare art objects at the national level. Academi secretary Sudhakar Sharma told TOI that he had a long chat with Bihar's culture secretary Vivek K Singh and Patna Museum's additional director Umesh Chandra Dwivedi. Sharma was in town in connection with the inauguration of the first national level painters' camp and workshop on terracotta art here. Sharma has also served more than one and half decade at the National Gallery of Modern Art, Delhi. Talking to TOI, Sharma said: "I have asked the Patna Museum official to send me a proposal of the masterpieces of art objects displayed at the museum for its publication at the national level on the pattern of Kerala murals. To date, we do not have any information about its rare art collections. We want to highlight its rare objects at the national and international level." Sharma was excited to see the rich collection of various art pieces at Patna Museum. "I have asked the Patna Museum director to send me a synopsis of its rich collection and on that basis we will shortlist objects for its publication. We will send our team to make slides and take photographs of such objects." The academi has published a series of books on art and artists for the promotion of regional art objects. It has also decided to document various dying arts of Bihar, including Patna Kalam and Manjusha arts, to preserve them. "We want to identify artists who were associated with Patna Kalam. Now this Patna school of painting is totally extinct. If we trace any family associated with Patna Kalam, we would like to document them along with the paintings," Sharma said. Sharma, a PhD in Buddhist Pala art, said that he also wants to document Madhubani painters. "For this we want a long term partnership with the government," he said. Before leaving for Kolkata to participate in an international conference on `Museums of the Future', he said that the concept of museums and their utility are fast changing all over the world.