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Benodebehari was one of the most informed Indian artists of his generation and perhaps the most self-reflexive. From the outset he took a deep interest in the history of art and wrote occasionally on the contemporary Indian art scene and the issues therein. When he returned to Santiniketan after losing hiseyesight and began to teach courses in Art History he also took to writing more seriously, now making it a tool not only to express his personal views onart but also to give literary expression to his experience. During this period besides writing on history of art education in the colonial art schools and in Santiniketan he also wrote a series of incisive studies, a selection of which was posthumously collated and published as a book. What brought him definitive recognition as a modern writer in Bengali were the quasi autobiographical pieces he wrote, outlining the context of his early life, his experience of blindness and his attempts to come to terms with it, and his vision of art and its aesthetic moorings. This collection titled "Chitrakar" brought him much critical attention and two literary awards.