Honouring painters on postage stamps: Inscriptions into India's public memory

In the birth centenary year of painter, sculptor, and architect Satish Gujral, the Department of Posts issued a commemorative postage stamp in his honour on August 3, 2026.

The ₹5 stamp was unveiled by Union Minister for Communications Jyotiraditya M. Scindia at a special ceremony held at Bikaner House in New Delhi. The stamp portrays Gujral seated in a contemplative pose, holding a paintbrush in his hand, against a background enriched with deep shades of purple and blue.

A postage stamp is generally regarded simply as proof that the fee for sending a letter has been paid. Countries around the world, however, recognised long ago that this small piece of printed paper could be much more than an instrument of the postal system. It could become a bearer of history, memory, culture, and national identity. A stamp may measure only a few centimetres, but the face, image, or work of art it carries can become part of a nation’s cultural memory.

Nearly 66 years ago, the Indian postal authorities began the tradition of honouring painters through postage stamps—a tradition that has continued over the decades.

On several occasions, instead of portraying the artist, the stamp has featured one of the artist’s works. Seen from this perspective, the history of Indian postage stamps also constitutes a small but remarkably fascinating parallel visual history of modern Indian painting.

The tradition began on May 7, 1961, when a stamp was issued on the birth centenary of Rabindranath Tagore, coinciding with his birthday. The 15-paise stamp carried a portrait of Gurudev Rabindranath Tagore.

Nearly six years later, on April 16, 1967, a 15-paise commemorative stamp was issued on the first death anniversary of painter Nandalal Bose. Along with a portrait of Bose, the stamp featured his celebrated work Garuda.

Nandalal was not merely a painter; he was one of the principal bridges through whom the artistic consciousness that emerged from the Bengal Renaissance was carried into modern India. His role at Santiniketan, his association with Mahatma Gandhi, and his contribution to the visual embellishment of the original handwritten manuscript of the Constitution of India place him at a remarkable intersection where art and nation-building meet.

The following year, on September 17, 1968, India Post issued a 20-paise commemorative stamp in honour of Gaganendranath Tagore on the occasion of his birth centenary. The stamp featured a self-portrait of Gaganendranath. His significance lies in the fact that, although associated with the Bengal School, he evolved a distinctive modernist language of his own. Even as he engaged with experiments in European modern art, his work remained firmly rooted in the Indian experience.

Three years later, on April 29, 1971, a 20-paise commemorative stamp was issued to mark the 122nd birth anniversary of Raja Ravi Varma. Ravi Varma occupies an extraordinary place in India’s visual culture. By bringing together European academic realism and Indian mythological narratives, he created enduring visual representations of gods, goddesses and characters from the epics. Through oleographs and popular printing, these images subsequently entered countless Indian homes.

In this respect, there is an intriguing affinity between Raja Ravi Varma and the postage stamp itself. Ravi Varma played a historic role in taking painting beyond elite collections and bringing it within the reach of ordinary people through the technology of print.

In the same year, on August 7, 1971, a postage stamp was issued to mark the birth centenary of Abanindranath Tagore, featuring his painting Abhisarika. The choice was particularly significant because, rather than the artist’s portrait, it was his work of art that became the vehicle of national remembrance. By turning away from colonial academic conventions and returning to indigenous sources, Abanindranath sought an alternative vision of modernity—one that decisively shaped the Bengal School and the subsequent development of modern Indian art.

Thus, between 1961 and 1971, the Indian postal authorities had already brought five major pillars of modern Indian art—Rabindranath Tagore, Nandalal Bose, Gaganendranath Tagore, Raja Ravi Varma and Abanindranath Tagore—onto postage stamps. In doing so, the postal department had initiated an effective means of keeping these artists alive in the collective memory of ordinary citizens.

March 23, 1978, marks a historic moment in this tradition of honouring painters. On that day, the Indian Posts and Telegraphs Department issued a set of four special postage stamps under the title ‘Modern Indian Paintings’.

The series featured works by four artists: Jamini Roy’s Two Vaishnavas, a painting by Sailoz Mookherjea, a work by Rabindranath Tagore, and Amrita Sher-Gil’s celebrated Hill Women.

By recognising modern Indian painting as a cultural subject in its own right and issuing four stamps devoted to works by major painters, India Post effectively transformed the postage stamp into a miniature national art gallery. It was an imaginative and unprecedented experiment.

Jamini Roy fashioned a distinctly modern visual language out of Bengal’s folk traditions. Amrita Sher-Gil, after receiving her artistic training in Europe, turned towards Indian life, its people, and its distinctive palate. Sailoz Mookherjea represented an independent and expressive strand of Indian modernism, while Rabindranath Tagore’s paintings opened up an almost unfettered world of imagination and the subconscious, largely free from the constraints of formal academic discipline.

Four years after this innovative initiative, on September 17, 1982, the Department of Posts issued postage stamps featuring paintings by M. F. Husain and Syed Haider Raza as part of the Festival of India. This marked a significant departure: for the first time, postage stamps featuring the works of artists were issued while the artists themselves were still living.

Only three months later, Nandalal Bose’s painting Pratiksha was given a place on a postage stamp. Then, on December 28, 1991, to mark the birth centenary of painter Asit Kumar Haldar, his celebrated painting Siddhartha with the Injured Bird was reproduced on a commemorative stamp.

After a gap of nearly a decade, on November 29, 2001, India Post commemorated the birth centenary of painter Sobha Singh with a postage stamp featuring a self-portrait. Sobha Singh’s images exercised a profound influence on the visual culture of Punjab, particularly its Sikh religious and cultural iconography.

His portraits of Guru Nanak and other Sikh Gurus circulated so widely through calendars, prints and domestic displays that they helped shape the religious visual memory of several generations.

The postal department’s tradition of honouring painters through postage stamps was not confined exclusively to artists of Indian origin. The Russian painter Dr Svetoslav Roerich was also accorded this distinction, with a postage stamp featuring his self-portrait issued on October 27, 2004. Significantly, Roerich had made India his home and the principal arena of his artistic life.

After a gap of 22 years, the issuance of a postage stamp to commemorate the birth centenary of painter, sculptor and architect Satish Gujral is therefore a particularly welcome development.

When the Department of Posts places a painter on a postage stamp, it does more than pay tribute to an individual artist: it inscribes that artist into the public memory of the nation.

The significance of this act becomes even more compelling because the postage stamp is itself a visual medium. A work of art is reborn on another, much smaller visual plane. It leaves the canvas, the museum or the private collection and begins a new journey—on envelopes, in philatelic albums, and, ultimately, through the hands of millions of citizens.

The author is a retired State Tax Officer, GST Department.