Rabin Mondal, born as Rabindra Nath Mondal, (1929 – 2 July 2019) was an Indian painter from Howrah, West Bengal. He was an Indian artist who was a founding member of the Calcutta Painters. He lived and worked in relative obscurity until retrospective exhibitions of his work in Kolkata, New Delhi and Bombay brought him to India's national attention in 2005.
Mondal was born in Howrah, an overcrowded urban extension of Calcutta. His family had prospered in business in the late 19th century. Rajendra Narayan Mondal (1792 to 1860), Dewan of Narayanganj in Bengal was an ancestor.
Though the Mondal family had a highly educated and upper-middle-class background, Howrah was known for its overcrowded slums. It was an environment that caused the young Rabin to take note of the realities of life and its struggles. In May 1976, Rabin married Bani Mitra, also an artist by profession.
Like many Indian artists of his generation, Rabin was deeply affected by the Bengal famine of 1943, the struggle for India's independence, and the subsequent partition of his native Bengal.
His first formal education in art was at the Indian College of Art and Draughtsmanship, Calcutta. He continued his artistic studies at the Asutosh Museum of Indian Art of the University of Calcutta.
In 1964 Rabin and what is now known as the "Group of Eight", (which consisted of Nikhil Biswas, Prokash Karmakar, Bijan Chowdhury, Gopal Sanyal, Bimal Banerjee, Mahim Rudra, Gunbritt Svensson and Mondal himself) formed the Calcutta Painters. This lively group of artists worked to promote modernist art not only in Calcutta, but throughout India, becoming nationally known in the process.
Though some of Mondal's best canvases have an obvious cubist influence, stylistically his work has been predominantly expressionist, a reaction to the tormented humanity that surrounded him in Calcutta, and the tragic events of his formative years.
Rabin Mondal's work can be found in the collections of The National Gallery of Modern Art, New Delhi, Osians Art Archive, Mumbai, The Birla Academy of Art and Culture, Kolkata, and the Jane and Kito de Boer Collection, Dubai.
