Born in 1931 in West Bengal, Kartick Chandra Pyne was one of the first Indian artists to experiment with Surrealism. Raw, whimsical and expressive, his paintings combine observation and imagination, opening a window to a world filled with colourful creatures and characters. “Art is never appreciated through logic,” he wrote, “yet it is never illogical.” Recently, Pyne was the subject of a major survey at Kolkata’s Emami Art. Entitled The (In)Visible & The (Un)Revealed, the exhibition provided a rare opportunity for viewers to see his work spanning seven decades, from early watercolours to large oil paintings and acrylics on canvas. Kartick Chandra Pyne lived a private, reclusive life in Kolkata, West Bengal. He did not gain recognition in the art world till late in his career, with only a small circle of friends, family and students bearing witness to his prolific work and dedication to art. This changed when his piece Bird in a Cage, painted in the 1970s and originally sold for only a few thousand Indian rupees, fetched a record price at a Sotheby’s auction in 2005.