A Trail of Paint (Looking at Art - Jamini Roy)

LOOKING AT ART leads children into the world and sensibilities of some of India's best known artists - contemporary, traditional and folk. It is an engaging introduction to art and the artist through story, memoir and biography, as well as a valuable resource for the understanding of art. Covering diverse forms of visual expression, it gives young readers a wider and more inclusive idea of art.

A TRAIL OF PAINT is one of a set of four books by Anjali Raghbeer featuring contemporary artists from four different parts of India - Amrita Sher-GiI, Jamini Roy, Ravi Varma and Maqbool Fida Husain.

Biswajit is dragged unwillingly on a culture trip, to an exhibition of Jamini Roy's paintings. Once there, however, an encounter with an old man leads him on to an intriguing discovery of fakes and forgers, down Kolkata by lanes, with more excitement than he could have hoped for! This story with art, adventure and a twist in the tail, looks at the evolution of Jamini Roy's unique style and raises issues about integrity in art - the importance of creating, not copying.

JAMINI ROY was born in 1887 in Beliator, in the Bankura district of West Bengal. Inspired by the folk art that surrounded him in his village, he went to study at the Government School of Art in Kolkata.

He trained in the established Western academic tradition of art and soon became popular for his landscapes and portraits. But he deliberately moved away from that as well as the more delicate folkloric approach of the Bengal School of art, to create his own bold style that was rooted in local culture.

He held his first exhibition in Kolkata in 1929 and received the Viceroy's gold medal for his painting, Mother Helping the Child to Cross a Pool, in 1935. His first international exhibition was in London in 1946, and the Indian government awarded him the Padma Bhushan in 1955. He died in 1972 at his home in Kolkata, after producing around 32,000 paintings - more perhaps than any other modern Indian artist.

Anjali Raghbeer specialised in business with an MBA from the London Business School, UK. But she had always yearned to writer, so she then did a certificated course in feature film writing from the University of California, Los Angeles, USA. She now writes film script and children's books, and some of her works have been converted into plays for children. Currently, she is busy with a major UK-based film project. She lives in New Delhi with her husband and two daughters. With a great lover for art, she conducts workshops that introduce youngsters to the world of Indian art.