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NEWS
Majumdar exhibit opens at Renaissance
Gary Taylor talks with Asha Jain, Mitali Vaksi, and Meena Wadhawa about artwork by Kumkum Majumdar at the Renaissance Art Gallery on Sunday, March 7, 2010, in Huntington.
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HUNTINGTON -- Inside the Renaissance Art Gallery Sunday afternoon, the co-op of artists put arms of love around one of their own.
The co-op gallery drew in hundreds of art lovers throughout a two-hour opening for the new exhibit, "Kumkum Majumdar: Retrospective Exhibition of a Batik Artist."
Majumdar, a native of India, was a member of the Tri-State Arts Association and the Tamarack in Beckley. She was a Batik artist and Cubist-influenced painter who took those traditions and swirled in her own Mountain State touch.
Majumdar passed away last September within a couple months of a cancer diagnosis.
That colorful world of Majumdar's art is celebrated in a new exhibit that features 44 original pieces ranging from Cubist oil paintings to wearable art, including two hand-dyed silk saris.
Standing near the doorway of the gallery, Kumkum's husband of 37 years, Sukhendu Majumdar, stood strong with moist eyes, welcoming folks who came to pay tribute to his beloved wife.
"There were really two chapters to her life," Majumdar said. "She had a wonderful domestic life as a daughter, and a mother, and a wife and grandmother. Then her second chapter was as an artist, and I am not an artist I am the opposite, an engineer. The way they all talk about Kumkum as an artist, you feel like she touched everyone."
Fern Christian, a fellow member of the co-op gallery, said it was wonderful to see the turnout that pushed the two-hour opening over by an extra hour to accommodate the continued crowds.
"Every time I walked through one room to get to another, it was difficult to get through, and that didn't stop," Christian said. "It was just a great turn out."
Linda Helgason, another friend of Kumkum's and a long-time fellow member of the co-op gallery at the old Huntington High School, said that Kumkum was a delightful and unique person.
"She really was a unique artist and a fun person, full of vigor, and I think that is why we were in such shock when she sickened and died in such a short time," Helgason said.
Helgason said she is grateful that Kumkum's husband, who has lived with Kumkum in the Huntington area since 1978, is keeping her memory alive at the gallery.
"He's offered to be a docent, and we want to have that link with him," Helgason said. "They're kind of like family."
