Eminent Indian painter and former Rajya Sabha MP Jogen Chowdhury died on Sunday morning in Kolkata, after more than a year of fighting blood cancer.

He was 87.

“He was diagnosed over a year ago, but the fighter that he was, he fought back,” gallerist Somak Mitra of Art Exposure told The Indian Express. “He was admitted to the hospital in Shoshti (October 16) and passed away this morning after an infection,” he said.

Chowdhury, who became popular in the 1960s, is celebrated for his distinctive style that seamlessly blends traditional Indian aesthetics with modernist sensibilities. He worked across several mediums. He mostly lived and worked from Shantiniketan.

Jogen Chowdhury graduated from the Government College of Art & Craft, Kolkata, and subsequently at Ecole Nationale Superieure des Beaux Arts, Paris in 1967.

A former Trinamool Congress MP, he also served as curator of the art gallery at Rashtrapati Bhavan.

According to the daily, before his final rites, the artist will be taken to his home in South City, and to Charubasona, a museum he opened in 2019 to house his life’s works.