10 Lines on Who is Bhanu Athaiya
In this article , we give information about who is Bhanu Athaiya. She was an Indian costume designer and painter and the first indian to win an Academy Award.
Who is Bhanu Athaiya
1 Bhanu Athaiya began her career as a film costume designer with the Dev Anand – starrer film C.I.D in 1956.
2 She went on to work with various noted film makers like Guru Dutt, Yash Chopra and Raj Kapoor.
3 She Designed the costumes in 130 films including super hits like Pyasa, guide, Sangam Satyam Shivam Sundaram commerce Sahib Bibi Aur Ghulam etc.
4 She also dressed the cast of the 2001 Lagaan film in 19th century costumes.
5 She was the first Indian to win an Academy Award
6 In 1983 she made history by becoming the first Indian to receive an Oscar at a glittering ceremony in Los Angeles .
7 She was given the Academy Award for costume design for her work in the 1982 film Gandhi. To design a wardrobe reflecting 50 years of Gandhiji’s life this was indeed a feat which deserves the highest honour in filmdom.
8 As earlier there was no support for the internet , Athiya would travel to different places to understand the nuances of different cultural backgrounds. This required hard work and to recreate the look of period films she would conduct extensive research.
9 in 2011 she released her autobiography The Art of Costume Design. Sir Richard Attenborough hailed Athaiya as ‘the revered doyenne of Indian costume designers’.
10 Athaiya returned her Oscar statuette to the academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences in 2012 for safe keeping.
Bhanu Athaiya Biography
1 Bhanu was born in a Marathi brahmin family Kolhapur in Maharashtra of British India.
2 She was the third of seven children born to Annasaheb and Shantabai Rajopadhye.
3 Athaiya’s father, Annasaheb was a self-taught artist and photographer who worked in the films of Baburao Painter.
4 She lost her father when she was just 11 years old. She was the third one ,Out of total seven siblings.
5 She studied at Sir J J School of Art, Mumbai, where she won the Usha Deshmukh Gold medal in 1951 for the artwork titled ‘Lady In Repose’.
6 She started her career as an artist in Mumbai while still studying at JJ School of Art.
Later she became a member of the Progressive Artists’ Group and exhibited with them.
7 Bhanu married a lyricist and poet, Satyendra Athaiya, in the 1950s.
8 In 2012, Bhanu was diagnosed with a brain tumour. She died on October 15, 2020 in Mumbai at the age of 91. She has a daughter named Radhika Gupta.