West Bengal

State

West Bengal serves as home to many talented artisans in India. The unique rustic and mystic charm of Bengal crafts is admired by art-lovers the world over. Arts and Crafts of West Bengal are the true manifestation of skills and passion, held by an entire state for ages.

From embroidery to sculpture and sketching to metal crafts, the state has a unique specialization in many forms of craft. The age-old traditional crafts of West Bengal have been so well molded according to the present day demands that it seems that these artisans, apart from their traditional skills, have an expertise in the art of survival as well.

Today, the handicraft items like metal crafts, Kantha embroidery silk and pottery are taking West Bengal to the whole world with their uniqueness, grace, antiquity and originality.

In West Bengal, there are large varieties of handicraft items, which are scattered mostly in the rural areas of different districts of West Bengal. These crafts are terracotta, dokra, brass & Bell-metal, conch & sea shell work, wood carving, horn crafts, sholacrafts, glass work, lac products, cane & Bamboo crafts, zari work, mask, artistic leather, jute –handicrafts, mat, embroidery, kantha stitch, hand batik, fabric painting, pata-chitra etc.

Though every district of the state has the culture of practicing a number of handicraft activities but each district is known by one or two crafts for which such districts has special reputation for these particular crafts.

» Darjeeling for its hill-crafts and painting
» Jalpaiguri for Cane work
» Coochbehar for Sitalpati
» Dakshin Dinajpur for Dhokra
» Uttar Dinajpur for Terracotta
» Malda for Brass and Bell Metal
» Murshidabad for sandal wood curving and Brass and Bell Metal
» Similarly, Bankura is famous for terracotta, stone curving, Dokra, Wood Curving etc.
» Burdwan for Dokra, sola craft and Kantha Stitch
» Birbhum for artistic leather goods and kantha stitch
» Nadia for Clay Dolls and Terracotta
» Hooghly for chikon embroidery
» Midnapur for Mat, Horn, fold painting
» Purulia for musk, Howrah for Jari work, imitation jwellery
» South and North 24 Parganas
» Kolkata for Jute crafts, silver filigree, embroidery etc.