Visva-Bharati’s Kala Bhavana on Sunday opened a weeklong exhibition of 100 paintings of Asit Haldar, the first head of the Bhavana and great-nephew of Rabindranath Tagore, and Nandalal Bose, one of the pioneers of modern Indian art.

Thirty-two of 44 paintings of Haldar are on display, gifted by his family to Visva-Bharati last year.

Actor Soumitra Chatterjee inaugurated the exhibition that will continue till August 10. Painter and emeritus professor of the Kala Bhavana, Jogen Chowdhury, and Bangladeshi painter Shahabuddin Ahmed also were present.

A painting at the exhibition. Picture by Indrajit Roy

The exhibition is part of the centenary celebrations of the Kala Bhavana, founded by Tagore in 1919.

Visva-Bharati sources said Haldar had come to Santiniketan in 1912 and stayed for three years as an art teacher. He went to Calcutta in 1916 and returned in 1919 when he took charge of the Kala Bhavana on the advice of Tagore.

Bose joined the Kala Bhavana in 1919 but went back to Calcutta and returned to Santiniketan in 1920.

“Both Asit Haldar and Nandalal Bose went to copy the mural of Ajanta caves as a part of a team with Lady Herringham (a British artist and art patron) in 1909 and 1910,” said Sanjoy Mallik, principal of the Kala Bhvana.