Calcutta Art Studio was established in 1878*
with an intention to publish and sell Mythological pictures
in a style of its own, originated by Sri Annadaprasad Bagchi,
along with four of his better students, namely, Sri Nabo Coomar
Biswas, Phanibhushan Sen, Sri Krishna Chandra Pal and Sri Jogendranath
Mukhopadhyay.
Sri Annadaprasad Bagchi was appointed as the
Headmaster of the Govt. School of Art in 1879 and had to leave
his pupils. The others continued till 1910, when two of the
partners, Sri Phanibhusan Sen and Sri Jogendranath Mukhopadhyay,
withdrew their stake in the Company, In 1920 Sri Nabo Coomar
Biswas was left alone, as Sri Krishna Chandra Pal declared to
leave his old friend and partner.
In the same year (1920) the Company's status
became a Sole - proprietorship one, as the ownership was transferred
to Sri Sudhir Ranjan Biswas, the youngest son of Sri Nabo Coomar
Biswas, However, Nabo Coomar continued as an active member of
the Company and helped his son to function it smoothly.
Thereafter, the Company became a commercial
Printing house, using modern Letterpress machine, Gradually,
by middle of the Century, the press was transformed into an
Offset Printing house.
In 1965 the status of the Company was changed
once again to that of Private Limited Company with 7 Shareholders
including 2 Directors headed by Sri Sudhir Ranjan Biswas as
Managing Director.
At present the Company has 19 Shareholders and
3 Directors namely : Sri Shubhojit Biswas, Sri Subrata Biswas
and Sri Soumya Biswas
The current activity of the Company is printing
of multicolour Books, Packaging materials etc. and trading of
used imported Printing machineries.
CALCUTTA ART STUDIO still exists at the original
address where it was incepted and treasures a few of the original
copies of the art produced during that era.
*Ref.
of the date of establishment:"ANNADA JIBANT" published
in Bengali year 1314.Newspaper : BENGALI & HINDU PORTRAIT
The approx. date of publication of these pictures
were between 1878 & 1905. Reference can be found in the
catalogue of exhibition titled " RAJ INDIA AND BRITISH
1602-1947" organised by India Office Library, London, held
at the National Portrait Gallery, London, between 19th October
1990 and 19th March 1991.