Updated on Wednesday, October 22, 2008, 00:00 IST

Kolkata Oct 22: Legendary painter and a pioneer of the Indian modern art movement Paritosh Sen died here on Wednesday evening, doctors attending on him said.

He is survived by his wife.

The 90-year-old artist was admitted to hospital on September five with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and had been on ventilator since. The end came at 7.10 pm.

Born in 1918 in a renowned Ayurvedic doctor's family in Dhaka, now in Bangladesh, Sen, who had his schooling at the renowned Pogose, ran away against the wish of his parents to the Madras School of Arts and Crafts. He later taught art at Daly College in Indore.

A founder of the 'Calcutta Group' of artists in 1943, Sen left for Europe in 1949 where he studied art at Andre Lahote's school in Paris, besides the Academie Grand Chaumier, Ecole the Beaux Arts and Ecole des Louvres where he studied art history. It was here that he met Pablo Picasso who left a deep impression that lasted a lifetime.

Returning to Calcutta in 1954, Sen joined Netarhat School near Ranchi to earn a living but after a short stint returned to Calcutta again to join the newly-opened School of Printing Technology as professor of design and layout.

In the early sixties, Sen visited England and France, where the French government commissioned him to design the Bengali typography based on the script of Rabindranath Tagore. This was an interest which re-surfaced in the eighties. Between 1970-71, he visited New York on a Rockfeller grant.

Bureau Report