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Self

Manjit Debashis

Graduate in Physics 1980,
Post Graduate Dip. in Computer Science1983
Post graduate Dip. in Conservation and Restoration of Oil paintings, 1985

After my Diploma in Conservation and Restoration of Oil painting , I joined Lalit Kala Akademi (National Academy of Art) New Delhi, as Senior Preservation Officer and Keeper for Art objects.

Lalit Kala Akademi is an apex body of Government of India to promote plastic art of India. It has a huge collection of contemporary paintings, sculptures in all media, graphics, watercolors and acrylic. The position I held in Lalit Kala gave me the opportunity to learn more and more about the contemporary methods and materials used by the artists in India.

My major restoration projects include cleaning the works of great artists such as Rodin, Picasso, Rembrandt, Monet, Manet and other masters whose works of art came to India as a part of Cultural Exchange Programmes of India with many countries in the world.

After ten years of my experience with art and artists all over world, the British Council India and the Charles Wallace India Trust awarded me a Fellowship that provided me the opportunity to work in both Paper Conservation and Oil Painting Conservation Department in the world renowned Victoria and Albert Museum, and Hirayama Studio, British Museum, London. Working in London exposed me to expert conservators of various countries.The names of such personalities such as Merryl Huxtable, Paulin Weber, Mike Wheeler, Alan Derbyshire, Sussana Edmunds, Nicola, Chris Gingel, Alison Richmond, Jonathan Ashley-Smith, Victoria Button, Simon Fleury, Enio Panetta, Saasa Gillian Roy, Renate Woudhuysen-Keller (Hamilton Kerr Institute), Lucia Scalisi, Xian Jin Qui, Andrew Thompson.

Making an online platform for open debate and discussion was a dream of mine since 1996, when I booked this domain name. It took almost 7 years to realise the dream and host a site like this one.

Meanwhile, I got some private restoration work in Frankfurt, Swiss and San Francisco but I could not carry on my profession as a Conservator. After leaving Lalit Kala Akademi in November 2000 I turned to website designing/and developing software for different institutions. I did some job for Monsoon Technologies GmbH, a company in Frankfurt with branches in India. I have great obligation to that firm for the web space in which the site is hosted.

As an artist I paint in oil, acrylic and lacquer. I also did many sculptures in bronze, wood, marble, terracotta, ceramics, epoxy and fiberglass . My paintings and sculptures are in the collection of National Gallery of Modern Art, New Delhi, Lalit Kala Akademi (National Academy of Art), New Delhi, and with many private collectors from USA, Germany, Sweden, India.

Still and Video photography are the other fields of my activity and I love travelling.

As an organiser of events I have more than 17 years experience in handling national and international exhibitions of art. This includes, customs clearances, writing condition reports of the exhibits, preparing reports for insurance, restoration, display management, display planning, packing (conservation on transit) and forwarding the works. I was the sole in charge of exhibits from their arrival till departure in 1986,1990,1994, 1997 Triennale India (an international exhibition of contemporary art organized by Department of Culture, Government of India, every three years). Through these events I interacted with many Internationally acclaimed curators, art historians, philosophers like Llilian Llanes(Cuba), Nikolay G. Prokhorov (Russia), Isabel Carlos (Portugal), Victoria Lynn(Australia), Carine Behar (France), Toshiaki Minemura (Japan), Kumiko Iijima(Japan).

I have also worked in the project "Multimedia for Humanities" under the UNDP and assisted project "Strengthening of National Facility for Interactive Multimedia Documentation of Cultural Resources", attended the International seminar and workshop at Indira Gandhi National Centre for Arts, New Delhi. Participated in "Exhibition and Display planning" a workshop jointly organised by Victoria and Albert Museum London, Sanskriti Pratisthan, New Delhi and British Council India, New Delhi.

In addition to these events I was involved in every National and Regional level exhibition organized by Lalit Kala Akademi in India between 1985 and 2000.

My special thanks to Martti Kupiainen (Finland) and P.Perumal (India), who always wrote to me, gave me strength to fight out my bad days and encouraged me for this project of making this site for conservators.

Postal Address:
139-B, POCKET-B, Mayur Vihar-II
New Delhi-110091

Tel (R) :+91-11-22779740
manjit@worldconservators.com