Sakti Burman, Contemporary Indian Art Master Lithograph in Color Abstract Figures with Cat, c.1960’s

Circus scene with cat, lithograph.
(possibly colored with watercolor painting. I am not sure)

Sakti Burman (born 1935 in Kolkata) is a contemporary Indian artist of Indian parentage living in France. (His name has also been spelled Shakti, Shakthi, and Sakthi.) His painting are marked by rich colors and mythical themes.
He grew up in what is now Bangladesh, British India. He has lived in France for the last five decades, while maintaining strong ties with India, where he regularly exhibits his works. He is married to French painter Maite Delteil. His extended family includes several eminent artists: his daughter, Maya Burman also lives and works in France; his niece, Jayasri Burman was inspired by him and is a notable artist in her own right; as is his niece’s husband, Paresh Maity. He has had several exhibitions of his work in India, and elsewhere, and won several prizes.

A painter and printmaker lithographer, Burman’s art has mythic and fantasy content and rich colors.
Born in Kolkata in 1935, Sakti Burman studied at the Government College of Arts and Crafts, Kolkata, and later at the École Nationale des Beaux Arts in Paris. Burman uses pointillism and a marbling technique achieved by blending oils with acrylics to create fresco-like works on paper and canvas. Burman’s paintings often evoke a surrealist feel, referencing multiplicities of time and place. His art drew extensively from Hindu and European mythology, as well as from the artist’s own memories. Suggesting surrealism, his paintings are populated by humans, animals and cityscapes that are dreamlike in appearance. His defining oeuvre owes largely to his technique of marbling, which he arrived at after years of experimentation. Burman travelled to Italy in 1958 and his encounter with the frescoes of Giotto, Piero della Francesca and Simone Martini inspired him to assimilate their monumentality and textures in his works.
The artist had his first solo exhibition in 1954 in Kolkata, and has since exhibited widely across the world including at venues like the Galerie des Beaux-Arts, Paris; Piccadilly Gallery, London; Galerie Doucet et Coutureau, Paris; Galleria Nuovo Sagittario, Milan; and Galerie Sagar, Zurich.
Burman has participated in several shows, some of the most recent including The Beholder’s Share by Jehangir Art Gallery and Art Musings in Mumbai in 2016; A Private Universe by Art Alive Gallery in New Delhi in 2015; Rituals and Reasons: Invoking the Sensual in Art, at Apparao Galleries in Chennai in 2014; The Wonder of it All, a retrospective exhibition by Pundole Art Gallery and Apparao Galleries in New Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata and Chennai in 2012, Archetype and Enraptured Gaze at Aicon Gallery in London and New York in 2009; Faces of Indian Art organised by Art Alive at the Visual Art Gallery, New Delhi; Understanding Oneness in Diversity at Kitab Mahal, Mumbai; An Evening in Paris …Rome…London at Gallery Sanskriti, Kolkata; and Resonance organised by Art Musings at Museum Gallery, Mumbai, all in 2007. Burman was awarded the Médaille d’Argent au Salon de Montmorency and the Prix des Étrangers, École des Beaux-Arts, Paris in 1956.
Sakti Burman lives and works in Paris, France.

Select Solo Exhibitions
2009 Archetype, Aicon Gallery, London
2009 Encaptured Gaze, Jehangir Art Gallery; Art Musings, Mumbai
2008 Maison de l’Unesco, organized by Unesco, Salles Miro, Paris
2007 Visual Arts Gallery, Indian Habitat Centre, New Delhi
2006 Visual Arts Gallery, Indian Habitat Centre, New Delhi Pundole Art Gallery
2005 Retrospective, organized by Apparao Galleries
2001 Birla Academy of Art and Culture, Kolkata
1999 Atlantic Gallery, New York organized by Apparao Galleries
1997 Cloitre de la Dame Blanche, La Rochelle
Exhibitions organized by Ecole de Paris at Tokushima, Miyazaki and Osaka

Select Group Exhibitions

2009 Think Small, Art Alive Gallery, New Delhi
2008 Art Alive, New Delhi
2007 An Evening in Paris …Rome…London, Gallery Sanskriti, Kolkata
2004 Confluence, organized by ArtsIndia, New York
2002 Aspects of Modern Indian Painting, New York organized by Saffronart and Pundole Art
2001 Three Burman, Sakti, Maite and Maya, Art Today, New Delhi
2000 Mappings making new links between Artisanal Cultures of India and Egypt,
1999 VIENNA Sigmund Freud’s Interpretation of Dreams, organized by University Art Museum, New York; Artists in exhibition: Odilon Redon, Giorgio de Chirico, Marc Chagall, Salvador Dali
1998 Christie’s Auction, Indian Contemporary paintings, London. Multimedia, Art of the 1900’s, CIMA Gallery, Kolkata. Harmony Show, Mumbai. Within The Fame, Apparao Galleries, Hong kong
1997 Displayed alongside Picasso, Chagall and Miro at Tokushima, Myazaki and Osaka, Japan
Chamatkar, The Indian Metaphor, organized by CIMA , Kolkata at Whitleys Art Gallery, London

Select Honors & Awards

Medaille d’argent au Salon de Montmorency
Prix des Etrangers, Ecole des Beaux-Arts, Paris
Prix de la ville de l’Isle-Adam
Medaille d’or, Salon des Artistes Francais, Grand Palais, Paris
Medaille arts, Science et Letters
Medaille au Salon de Juvisy
Invite d’honneur, Colombes