Born in Dhaka (now in Bangladesh) in 1918, Paritosh Sen studied art at the Government College of Arts and Crafts in Madras, and at Andre Lhote's School, Academy Grand Chamier, Ecole de Beaux Arts and Ecole de Louvre in Paris. Since 1946, he had numerous one-person and group shows in India and abroad, and his paintings are part of the collections at the National Gallery of Modern Art (Delhi), the Ministry of External Affairs, Rashtrapati Bhavan and the Birla Academy (Calcutta), to name just a few. He taught and lectured on art at various national and international institutions. Documentary films on his work have been made by the West Bengal government (1962), by Doordarshan, Calcutta (One Day in the Life of a Celebrity, 1988), and by German television on the occassion of the India Festival there. Among his many awards are: a prestigious medallion, 'L'officier de l'ordre des Arts et des Lettres', conferred by the Republic of France in 2002, a Doctorate of Literature by the Rabindra Bharati Univeristy, Calcutta, in 2002, and the Aban-Gagan Puraskar given by Visva-Bharati, in 2000. Paritosh Sen's publications include numerous articles in journals on the problems of contemporary art, and three Bengali collections of essays and stories: Zindabaha, Abu Simbal, Picasso o Anyanyo Tirthe and Amsundari o Anjanyo Rachana.
