Ramendranath Chakravorty (1902–1955) was an accomplished draughtsman and painter, though his primary passion lay in printmaking. He experimented with a wide array of techniques—including woodcuts, wood engraving, linocut, lithography, etching, dry point, and aquatint—frequently portraying landscapes and scenes from daily life. Born in Tripura in 1902, he began his formal art education at the Government College of Art in Calcutta in 1919, but in 1921 he moved to the newly established Kala Bhavana at Visva-Bharati University, Santiniketan.

Following his graduation, he embarked on a teaching career, first at Kalashala, Andhra National Art Gallery in Machilipatnam, and later returning to Kala Bhavana as a faculty member. In 1929, he joined the Government School of Art in Calcutta, then headed by Mukul Dey. Between 1943 and 1946, he served as acting principal, during which time he established the school’s graphics department, and in 1949, he was appointed principal. In 1937, he studied painting at the Slade School of Art in London and trained in wood engraving under Eric Gill.

Chakravorty’s travels across Europe resulted in the rare and significant publication Sketches of Europe Before the War (London, 1944), a collection of drawings now preserved in select American university archives. His untimely death at 53 is regarded as a major loss to Indian art, cutting short a career that held extraordinary promise.