Govt College of Art & Craft, one of India’s oldest, gets blue plaque
Times of India | 16 September 2024
Kolkata: Govt College of Art and Craft, one of the oldest art colleges in the country, has been identified as a Grade I heritage structure and a blue plaque has been put up outside the building by Kolkata Municipal Corporation.
The objective behind putting these blue plaques, which started with the installation of a plaque outside Rani Rashmoni’s Janbazar house in 2022, is to sensitize the people about the history of the structures and generate a sense of pride among them.
Principal of the Govt Art College Chhatrapati Dutta said, “We are glad to receive the blue plaque as it recognizes the history and heritage of the institution. I appreciate the initiative that has been taken by the civic body.”
The Govt College of Art and Craft was founded on Aug 16, 1854 as the School of Industrial Art, a private art school, in Garanhata. Later in 1864, it was taken over by the govt and renamed as Govt School of Art. On June 29, 1864, educationist Henry Hover Locke was appointed as the principal of the institution and emphasized on imparting art education synonymous to the South Kensington School in London. In 1892, the institution was shifted to its current location adjacent to the Indian Museum and in 1951, it was renamed as the Govt College of Art and Craft.
“Abanindranath Tagore along with Ernest Binfield Havell initiated an alternative model of art education in the art school at Calcutta, which encouraged developing a visual idiom of art which can be claimed as ‘Indian’ against the prevalent model of western academic realism,” said a professor of the art college. Tagore held the post of the vice principal of the Govt School of Art from 1905 to 1915. Havell was the superintendent in 1986 and became the principal from 1896 to 1905.
Secretary of the Govt Art College alumni association Aniruddha Mukherjee said, “Some of our notable alumni are Nandalal Bose, Jamini Ray, Somnath Hore, Zainel Abedin, Ganesh Pyne, Ganesh Haloi, Shanu Lahiri, Jogen Chowdhury, Paresh Maity, Sanatan Dinda and others.”