Heritage of Nepali portrait paintings

Art historians and scholars should take up the cudgel to locate the portraits here and abroad.

Portrait making in Nepal, which also shares some universal features, has an important history. The heritage of portrait painting executed by using modern techniques is not very old in Nepal. For heuristic purpose, I want to begin with a modern example. Art historian and critic Dina Bangdel writes how Lain Singh Bangdel went through several attempts and experiments to make BP Koirala’s portrait finally. In her book Lain Bangdel: Fifty Years of His Art (1995), Dina writes, “The portrait captures vividly the sitter’s dynamic personality while the swift brushwork and warm colours, combined with an abstraction give the painting a sense of arrested movement.” Anyone who goes to the gallery of the Nepal Arts Council can see BP Koirala’s portrait with “arrested movement” placed alongside those of other politicians and literary writers.