Santo Datta was an art critic, art curator and scholar and has written extensively on modern and contemporary Indian art. He was an art critic with The Indian Express, The Hindu, The Hindustan Times and The Pioneer successively for more than thirty years contributing to the arts page of these publications. In the 1960s, he ran a column in The Tribune called Cultural Panorama. Datta was also the member of the advisory committee at the NGMA, New Delhi from 1993-95. Santo Datta has also served as guest editor at Lalit Kala Akademi for the Lalit Kala Contemporary Journal in 2005. Besides numerous research papers and catalogues, his recent publications included the book After the Fall: Time, Life and Art of Rabin Mondal.

ESSAYS

Richard Bartholomew: The critic who was a movement

by Santo Datta

In the title of this essay I have made a statement which I shall try to explain in the following paragraphs. The biographical details like when he became the Director of Kunika Art Centre, or how many years he served the Lalit Kala Akademi as its secretary, will not find any place here. That he was

Drawing and the shifting focus

by Santo Datta

The convention demands prior to a discussion on anything, it has to be defined, which, I think, is the most difficult task. The very first stumbling block.

In the history of art, drawing has been defined in so many ways by so many artists and art-theoreticians, both in the East and the West, that

When you put cart(oons) before the horse

by Santo Datta

In the aftermath of the recent seminar ‘Punchline -- Cartoons against Communalism’ by SAHMAT, art critic Santo Datta wonders at the naïve inability of participating cartoonists to comprehend their historic role at a time when cartoons are becoming central to social research.

At SAHMAT’S seminar in

Santo Datta

Richard Bartholomew: The critic who was a movement

Drawing and the shifting focus

When you put cart(oons) before the horse

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