Amina Ahmad Kar
a forgotten name from
international modernism in Bengal

Aparna Roy Baliga

When one starts research on women artists from Bengal, the name which familiarizes the work of one of the earliest woman artist, Sunayani Devi with the readers is Amina Ahmed Kar who remained unuttered in most of the discussions on the early phase of international modernism in Bengal. My interest in Amina developed after reading her writing on art. The Angkorian records show that she had been granted scholarship in art historical research and writing. She wrote about the interaction between the Cambodian and the Indian civilisations. Apart from this speak of international affinities, a departure from the indigenous modernism and the academic pedagogy of the British established institutions.