Unseen Hands of the Pat: Gendering the Transmission of Folk Painting in Rural Midnapore and Bankura

Abstract

The folk art traditions of West Bengal, specifically Patachitra (scroll painting) and clay modelling, have long been celebrated in South Asian art historiography as vital markers of indigenous visual culture. However, mainstream accounts have predominantly framed these crafts through male lineages, portraying the Patua or Chitrakar artisan class as a male-dominated guild system. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork, qualitative oral histories of female artisans in Pingla (Paschim Medinipur) and Bankura, and local craft guild registries, this article uncovers the gendered division of labour in folk art production. It argues that women historically performed critical stages of production, ranging from pigment preparation and canvas scaling to line work and the oral transmission of narratives, while their contributions remained socio-economically marginalized and historiographically invisible. As modernization, market commercialization, and developmental interventions transformed rural artisan economies between 1947 and 1997, women transitioned from uncredited background contributors to visible and independent creators, thereby challenging traditional patriarchal guild constraints.