Meera Mukherjee was an Indian sculptor and writer, known for bringing modernity to the ancient Bengali sculpting art. She is known to have used innovative bronze casting techniques, improving the Dhokra method employing Lost-wax casting, which she learnt during her training days of the Bastar sculpting tradition of Chhattisgarh. She received the fourth highest civilian award of the Padma Shri from the Government of India in 1992 for her contributions to Arts.
Biography
Meera Mukherjee, born in Kolkata to Dwijendramohan Mukherjee and Binapani Devi in 1923, had her initial training in Arts at the Indian Society of Oriental Art of Abanindranath Tagore where she stayed till her marriage in 1941. The marriage was short-lived and Mukherjee, after the divorce, resumed her art studies by joining the Government College of Art and Craft, Kolkata and the Delhi Polytechnic, Delhi and secured diploma in painting, graphics and sculpture. Later, she assisted Effendi, an Indonesian artist, at Shantiniketan till she got a scholarship for studies in Munich in 1953 which gave her opportunities to work under :de:Toni Stadler junior|Toni Stadler and :de:Heinrich Kirchner|Heinrich Kirchner. It was Toni Stadler who supported Mukherjee's transition from a painter to a sculptor. She returned India in 1957 and took up the job as an art teacher at Dowhill School, Kurseong where she stayed till 1959 when she moved to , Kolkata, teaching there for one year. Mukherjee started freelancing after resigning from her regular job at Pratt Memorial in 1960 and trained in Dhokra casting technique under the tribal artisans of Bastar of Chhattisgarh. Receiving a senior research fellowship in 1962 from the Anthropological Survey of India, she did research on the bell metal craft goods of India and Nepal till 1964. During this time, she also started exhibiting her works at various places in India and abroad. Known to create only a few pieces a year, she created many notable works like Ashoka in Kalinga, Earth Carriers, Smiths Working Under a Tree, Mother and Child, Srishti, The Rumour and portrait of Nirmal Sengupta. One of her creations, Emperor Asoka is on display at the Nandiya Gardens of ITC Maurya, New Delhi. Her works have featured in many international auctions such as that of Christie's and Invaluable. Simultaneously, she pursued a career as a writer of children's stories and published a few books, Little Flower Shefali and Other Stories, Kalo and the Koel and Catching Fish and Other Stories being some of the notable ones. She also published one monograph, Metal Craft in India in 1978, and two books on the traditional metal craft in India namely Metal Craftsmen in India in 1979 and In Search of Viswakarma in 1994. Meera Mukherjee died in 1998, at the age of 75.
Awards and honours
Mukherjee received the Press Award for the Master Craftsman, in 1968, from the President of India. An Emeritus Fellow of the Indian government, she received the Excellence Award from Kolkata Ladies’ Study Group in 1976 and the Abanindra Prize in 1981 from the Government of West Bengal. She held the fellowship from the Ministry of Culture from 1984 to 1986. The Government of India awarded her the civilian honour of the Padma Shri in 1992.
