Sculptor Uma Siddhanta passes away at 93
Times of India | 29 October 2025Born on Jan 11, 1933, in Kolkata, Siddhanta taught at Shri Shikshayatan College and was known for her sculptures using bronze, wood, and stone. The story goes that renowned sculptor Ramkinkar Baij was overwhelmed when he saw Siddhanta's first open-air sculpture mounted at Jatin Das Park. The work, on the subject of mother and child, was later removed due to the Metro Railway construction. Her son, Ashis Kumar Siddhanta, told TOI, "Maa passed away at our residence on Tuesday morning.
For the last five years, she was suffering from dementia. A few months back, an exhibition of her works was held in the city."
Siddhanta's mentor in her formative years was Phani Bhusan Das, a protégé of Nandalal Bose. He gave training in batik, leather craft, and pottery along with embroidery and woodcraft. However, sculpting was her calling. "Maa was the first woman to graduate in sculpting from the Government College of Art & Craft in 1956," Ashis said.
But securing admission in this dept wasn't easy. She was told that the gruelling work of sculpting might not be suited for the petite fingers of a woman.
"I consider her to be a silent revolutionary and am in awe of her grit and determination to break the glass ceiling," said director Abanti Sinha, who directed a documentary on her that was screened at the Kolkata International Film Festival last year.
According to art historian and critic Prasanta Daw, Siddhanta was one of the favourite students of famous sculptor Prodosh Dasgupta.
"Uma-di's greatest strength was her ability to diversify. After graduation, she was inspired by conventional realistic work. In the 1970s, nature inspired her. In the late 1980s, Uma created a series of faces inspired by Sigmund Freud's interpretation of human psychology," Daw said.
She was an author, embroidery artist, teacher, and painter who even tried her hand at painting on betel nut bark. In Sinha's documentary on her, Ashis mentions that she is perhaps the first artist to design a Durga idol for a theme puja at Bokulbagan and refers to how Siddhanta was inspired by Minoan art to make the idol."When
I first met Uma-di at her studio-cum-residence, I saw her designing sets for her grandson's play in school.
Uma-di beautifully balanced home and profession," recalled Supriya Banerjee of Galerie 88, which organised her retrospective in 2013.
One of her works titled ‘Primitive-I' was honoured with the National Award by Lalit Kala Academy in 1992. "She also propounded a new method of teaching language by simplified techniques of creating alphabets through circles, squares, and straight lines," Sinha said. She will also be remembered for introducing a new educational method in secondary education (mass education through folk art) for which she was honoured with National Awards in 1979 and 1980.
