Fellow artists recall Jogen Chowdhury’s brilliance, warm mentorship, indelible legacy

Eminent painter and former Trinamool Congress Rajya Sabha member Jogen Chowdhury died at a private hospital in Kolkata on Sunday morning at the age of 87. According to Hindustan Times, he had been battling blood cancer and was recently admitted to the hospital with a urinary tract infection, requiring ventilator support. While The Hindu reports he had been undergoing chemotherapy for the past 14 months for a myeloproliferative neoplasm, Hindustan Times states he had been undergoing chemotherapy for approximately 18 months since early 2025.

Chowdhury was born on February 16, 1939, in Faridpur, in present-day Bangladesh, and migrated to Kolkata during Partition. He graduated from the Government College of Art and Craft in Kolkata in 1960. Following his death, Suvendu Adhikari expressed condolences, noting that Chowdhury's works are displayed at the Rashtrapati Bhawan. Writer Shirshendu Mukhopadhyay described him as an open-hearted person who had stopped leaving his home a year ago.

Brief written by urgent.news from The Hindu, Hindustan Times — 2 reports on this story. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.