UPHESC Assistant Professor Drawing & Painting 2025 PYQs

Concept: ‘You Can’t Please All’ (1981) is Bhupen Khakhar’s celebrated painting showing a nude man (the artist) on a balcony watching the fable of the old man, the boy and the donkey.

1. Khakhar belonged to the Baroda narrative-figurative group.
2. Meera Mukherjee – bronze sculptor; Tyeb Mehta – ‘Kali’, ‘Falling Figure’; G.M. Sheikh – ‘Returning Home after a Long Absence’.

Short trick: You Can’t Please All – Khakhar – 1981.

Concept: The Indian Society of Oriental Art was founded in Calcutta in 1907 by Abanindranath Tagore with Gaganendranath Tagore (and supporters like Lord Kitchener, Havell, Woodroffe).

1. It promoted the Bengal School revival of Indian art.
2. Nandalal Bose and Manishi Dey were Abanindranath’s pupils; Amrita Sher-Gil was outside this movement.

Short trick: ISOA 1907 – Abanindranath.

Concept: G.R. Santosh (Kashmir) is the leading Neo-Tantric painter – geometric male-female (Shiva–Shakti) forms inspired by Kashmir Shaivism.

1. Other Neo-Tantric artists: Biren De, Sohan Qadri, K.C.S. Paniker (in part), Prafulla Mohanti.
2. Husain – figurative; Jatin Das – figures; Ram Kumar – abstract landscapes.

Short trick: Santosh + Biren De = Neo-Tantra.

Concept: The Progressive Artists’ Group (PAG) was formed in Bombay in 1947 by F.N. Souza, S.H. Raza, M.F. Husain, K.H. Ara, H.A. Gade and S.K. Bakre.

1. Souza was its leader; later V.S. Gaitonde, Akbar Padamsee, Krishen Khanna, Ram Kumar joined.

Short trick: PAG 1947 founders: Souza–Raza–Husain–Ara–Gade–Bakre.

Concept: Match each person with their field.

1. Amrita Sher-Gil – painter (III).
2. Ram V. Sutar – sculptor of the Statue of Unity (IV).
3. Subodh Gupta – installation artist with steel utensils (I).
4. Keshav Malik – poet and art critic (II).

Short trick: Painter–Sculptor–Installation–Critic = III, IV, I, II.

Concept: The Calcutta Group was formed in 1943 (after the Bengal famine) by Pradosh Das Gupta, Paritosh Sen, Nirode Mazumdar, Gopal Ghose, Rathin Maitra, Subho Tagore, Prankrishna Pal and others.

1. B.C. Sanyal worked in Lahore and later Delhi (Delhi Shilpi Chakra) – not a member.

Short trick: Calcutta Group 1943 – Pradosh, Paritosh, Nirode; Sanyal = Lahore/Delhi.

Concept: Abanindranath’s pupils spread the Bengal School by heading art institutions across India.

1. Nandalal Bose – Kala Bhavana, Santiniketan (4).
2. Asit Kumar Haldar – Principal, Lucknow School of Arts (3).
3. D.P. Roy Chowdhury – Principal, Madras School of Arts (2).
4. Shailendranath De – Maharaja School of Arts, Jaipur (1).

Short trick: N-S, H-L, R-M, D-J → 4 3 2 1.

Concept: ‘The Scream’ (1893) is by the Norwegian painter Edvard Munch – an icon of Expressionism showing existential anxiety.

1. Manet – ‘Olympia’, ‘Luncheon on the Grass’; Dali – ‘Persistence of Memory’; Picasso – ‘Guernica’.

Short trick: Scream – Munch – Norway – 1893.

Concept: Georges Braque painted ‘Houses at L’Estaque’ (1908); critic Louis Vauxcelles called its forms ‘little cubes’, giving Cubism its name.

1. Gauguin – Tahiti, Synthetism; Seurat – Pointillism; Géricault – ‘Raft of the Medusa’ (Romanticism).

Short trick: L’Estaque cubes → Braque → ‘Cubism’.

Concept: Illustrated Kalpasutra manuscripts belong to the Western Indian (Jain/Apabhramsha) style of Gujarat and Rajasthan (12th–16th cent.).

1. Features: angular faces, protruding farther eye, red ground, gold and blue.
2. East India is associated with Pala Buddhist manuscripts.

Short trick: Kalpasutra = Gujarat = West India; Pala = East.

Concept: ‘The Persistence of Memory’ (1931, melting clocks) is by the Spanish Surrealist Salvador Dalí; it is in MoMA, New York.

1. Manet – realism/Impressionist forerunner; Monet – Impressionism (‘Impression, Sunrise’); Picasso – Cubism.

Short trick: Melting clocks = Dalí.

Concept: Italian poet Filippo Tommaso Marinetti published the Founding Manifesto of Futurism in Le Figaro (Paris) on 20 Feb 1909.

1. Boccioni later co-signed the Futurist painting manifesto (1910); Joseph Stella was an American follower.

Short trick: Futurism 1909 – Marinetti – Le Figaro.

Concept: Surrealism (André Breton’s manifesto, 1924) explored dreams and the unconscious.

1. André Masson (automatic drawing), Joan Miró and Pierre Roy took part in the first Surrealist exhibition (1925).
2. Georges Braque was a co-founder of Cubism, not a Surrealist.

Short trick: Braque = Cubism (with Picasso).

Concept: A. Ramachandran often paints himself into his large mural-like canvases (e.g. lotus-pond series, ‘Yayati’) as a small observer or narrator – like the sutradhar of Indian drama.

1. The device comes from Kerala temple murals that he studied.
2. K.G. Subramanyan, Paritosh Sen and Husain do not use this recurring self-presence.

Short trick: Ramachandran = self-portrait as sutradhar in his own paintings.

Concept: Folk art is the art of the common village people, passed orally and by practice from generation to generation in rituals and festivals.

1. Rangoli, Mandana, Madhubani, Kohbar etc. are kept alive by rural women and artisans.

Short trick: Lok = village people.

Concept: Kalamezhuthu is the ritual floor-drawing of Kerala – images of Bhadrakali, Ayyappa, serpent deities drawn with five natural colour powders in temples.

1. Odisha – Pattachitra; Maharashtra – Warli; Jharkhand – Sohrai, Khovar.

Short trick: Kalam (floor picture) + ezhuthu (writing) = Kerala.

Concept: Match each regional folk art.

1. Bihar – Godana (tattoo-based painting, Mithila) (3).
2. Maharashtra – Rangoli (4).
3. Rajasthan – Mandana (2).
4. Uttar Pradesh – Chauk Poorana (1).
5. So a-3, b-4, c-2, d-1.

Short trick: Rajasthan Mandana + UP Chauk → only B has c-2, d-1.

Concept: Kohbar is the painting on the wall of the nuptial chamber (kohbar ghar) made at Hindu weddings in Bihar/U.P. – lotus, bamboo, fish, parrots, sun-moon as fertility symbols.

1. Godana – tattoo; Alpana – floor design of Bengal; Mehandi – on hands, not walls.

Short trick: Wedding wall = Kohbar.

Concept: Folk art carries the living tradition of a people.

1. Statement I: folk art reflects national identity and heritage – true.
2. Statement II: the decorated mangal kalash/ghat placed at every festival is itself a folk-art practice – true.

Short trick: Kalash, rangoli, alpana = folk art in daily ritual.

Concept: Madhya Pradesh has more than one traditional (tribal) painting tradition, and two of them are printed among the options.

1. Gond painting — Pardhan Gond artists of Mandla–Dindori, made famous by Jangarh Singh Shyam — is a traditional art of M.P. (A is correct).
2. Bhil painting — the dotted wall and ritual (Pithora) painting of the Bhils of Jhabua–Alirajpur, known through Bhuri Bai — is equally a traditional art of M.P. (C is correct).
3. Madhubani belongs to Bihar and Pata Chitra to Odisha/Bengal. As printed, both A and C are right and the question does not say "most famous" or "which one only", so it is treated as a bonus.

Short trick: M.P. tribal art = Gond (Mandla–Dindori) + Bhil (Jhabua).