Abanindranath Tagore (August 7,1871-December 5,1951) is regarded as the father of India`s modern art. He is the leader of Renaissance movement of Indian Painting as he contributed a lot to the revival of ancient Indian art, specially the Moghul and Rajput style of art. He was also an eminent writer of Bengal and especially famous for his writings for children.

Born in Famous Tagore family of Jorasanko,Kolkata, which was the birthplace of many Cultural Revolution of Bengal, Abanindra grew up in an environment of art, culture and creativity. He was the youngest son of Gunendranath Tagore and nephew of Rabindranath Tagore. His grandfather Girindranath Tagore and eldest brother Gaganendranath Tagore were also well-known painters. He studied at Sanskrit college from 1881 to 1890 and took lessons of art there. In 1889 Ababanindra got married to Smt Suhasini Devi. After leaving Sanskrit college he was admitted as a special student of English in St. Xavier`s college that he continued for a year and a half. He started taking private lessons from an Italian artist Signor Gilhardi on cast drawing, foliage drawing, pastel and life study when he was about twenty-five years of age. Later Abanindra attended the studio of Mr. Charles L. Palmer,an English painter for three-four years and attained sound proficiency in portrait and oil-painting.

Soon Abanindranath got famous for his talent with paintbrush and his own oeuvre came from discarding European Materialism and recovering Indian `Spiritualism` in his paintings. He had a particular interest in watercolor although he learned full range of techniques. He joined as the vice-principal at the Government College of Art at Calcutta and earned reputation from his unorthodox method of teaching. Here Abanindranath came in contact with the Principal Dr. E.B.Havell,who himself was enamoured by the beauty and richness of India`s tradition of art and painting and brought Abanindra`s attention to Moghul and Rajput style. In this time Abanindranath painted a number of works on `Krishna` influenced by the Moghul-style. In the early 1890s Abanindra`s many illustration was published in Sadhana magazine as well as in Chitrangada and other works of Rabindranath. He had several International exhibitions among which London and Paris exhibition in 1913 and Japan exhibition in 1919 can be named. Rodin and Rothenstein admired Tagore`s work. Most of his paintings (over 500) are now in the collection of Rabindra Bharati Society of Jorasanko, Calcutta and his works are declared as National Art Treasure.

Abanindranath Tagore made several radical changes during his stint in Government Art College from 1905 to 1915 like he made stencil cutting and origami compulsory for the students and replaced the European paintings on the school wall by Moghul and Rajput paintings. He established a department of fine arts where he invited the reputed artists from all over the India and gave his students the chance to meet them and exchange their ideas. In 1907 Tagore founded `The Bengal School` and `Indian School of Oriental Art`. His students were also very famous in their own arena and started the Revivalist movement in India.

Nandalal Bose, Jamini Roy, Asit Halder, Kshitindranath Majumdar, S.N. Bose are the names that can be named as the brightest of the stars.

In his own way Abanindranath started the pan-Asian art movement also as he was introduced to the Japanese style of art by great artist Okakura, who influenced him by the Japanese landscape and calligraphic style of art. On the other hand Abanindra`s own sense of Indian spiritualism was reflected through his contribution to freedom movement as he helped in reviving smutted handloom clothes from Jessore and Pabna by acquiring them and bringing them to Swadeshi stores. Students made procession with flags of `Bharat Mata` painted by Abanindranath Tagore.

In his old age Abanindranath was more interested in sculpturing from branches of tree or other trashes rather than painting, which he named as `kutum-katam`. This great personality died on December 5,1951.