The original founders have gone, but the commitment to keeping Calcutta Painters running since 1964 has made it possible to host its 56th Annual, online this time, with 14 members. Amal Chakladar combines his delicate Bengal School brush with a caricatural squint not unlike Paritosh Sen’s. Jogen Chowdhury’s sneer scalds male sexuality as a carnivorous ravenousness linked to vengeance in Killer of the Pregnant Mother. It also alludes to an earlier work done in the context of the post-Godhra violence.

Niren Sengupta’s semi-abstract suite breaks down form into a tumbling kaleidoscope of colour blocks as Gautam Bhaumik whips up a storm of frenzied van Gogh-esque strokes in impasto paint. Debabrata Chakraborty has shifted from narrative figuration to a reflective abstraction in which speckled, vaporous, dripping overlaps of paint fleetingly recall Clyfford Still. Akin in spirit is Sudip Banerjee whose pastel strokes evoke the elegant rhythm of dense, breeze-swept grass.

Subrata Ghosh’s wall graffiti plug into the throb of urbanism (picture), while Subhabrata Nandi dissects the city in terms of a Constructivist anatomy. Manik Ghosh goes in for an urbane, ad-savvy slickness in his prints