Ramkinkar’s Take on MK Binodini

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• Ramkinkar Baij (1906 ‒ 1980)
• MK Binodini (1922 ‒ 2011)

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MK Binodini, the elegant and legendary lady whom we used to call Emasi, was the muse of Ramkinkar Baij. With due respect to Emasi and as a tribute to Ramkinkar Baij, the father of modern Indian sculpture, I have created this collage from the photos I have taken from an exhibition, which was held at the National Gallery of Modern Art in Delhi from 8 February to 31 March 2012.

Baij’s subjects were the people he met, including an Indonesian girl who was visiting Visva Bharati. A series of paintings have his student and muse, Binodini. “One doesn’t know what relation the two shared; she appeared in several of his works, often nude,” says Radhakrishnan (the curator of the present exhibition). Hailing from a princely family of Manipur, when asked why didn’t she marry Baij, Binodini had replied, “He was a good artist but that does not necessarily mean he was a good husband.”
— Recasting Baij, The Indian Express, 13 Feb 2011

What was Ramkinkar's conception of himself? What does a saint think about his sainthood? He looked at the world as an insider and was never alienated from it. Ramkinkar only worked on what he knew, not on what he wanted to know.
— Being universal by being local by Chitra Padmanabhan, from an interview of the curator, K.S. Radhakrishnan, in Frontline (Volume 29, Issue 05, Mar. 10–23, 2012)