Google Doodle Honors Indian Painter Jamini Roy

Google Doodle paid tribute to celebrated Indian painter Jamini Roy on Tuesday, on what would have been his 130th birthday.

Born in West Bengal in 1887, Roy studied at the Government School of Art in Kolkata from 1906 to 1914 but rejected the Western, academic styles of painting that dominated at the time.

Instead, he turned to the folk arts of his native Bengal for inspiration, and shepherded in a uniquely Indian style of modern painting for which he is still known today.

By the 1950s, Roy’s work had been exhibited in London and New York City. He was awarded India’s third-highest civilian honor, the Padma Bhushan, in 1954. In the 1970s, the Ministry of Culture declared him one of the country’s “nine masters” whose artworks are considered national treasures.

Roy died in Kolkata in 1972 at the age of 85. The Google Doodle is based on his painting Black Horse.