Chintamoni Kar was a renowned Indian sculptor. He first trained at Abanindranath Tagore's Oriental Art Society and learnt sculpting from Giridhari Mahapatra of Orissa and Victor Giovanelli of Italy. In 1938, Kar went to Paris to improve his sculpting technique and then to London in 1946. He was a member of the Royal Society of British Sculptors. Kar won the silver medal for sculpting at the 1948 London Olympics. Kar returned to West Bengal in 1956.

Kar was awarded the Padma Bhushan in 1972. In 2000, he was awarded France’s highest civilian honour - conferred on him by the country’s ambassdor.

Atul Bose was a portrait painter from Bengal. Bose studied at the Jubilee Academy in Calcutta and then at the government art school, and began his career as a penniless artist doing sundry artistic jobs in Bengal. Bose's Bengal Tiger, a sketch of the educationist Asutosh Mukherjee, earned him a scholarship to the Royal Academy in London. The sketch was used by The Times Literary Supplement in their obituary of Mukherjee in 1924 (30 May 1924).

Bose spent two years, 1924-6, at the Royal Academy. He was heavily influenced there by the post-impressionist Walter Sickert. He refused an invitation to help decorate the pavilion at the British Empire Exhibition in 1924 with Mukul Dey. Upon his return to India, Bose taught at the government art school in Calcutta. However, he became unhappy there with the appointment of Mukul Dey in 1928. In 1929, the Government of India announced an all-India competition to produce copies of the royal portraits at Windsor Castle for the Viceroy's new residence in New Delhi. The architect Edwin Lutyens chose Bose and J. A. Lalkaka for this prize and they went to England in 1930. Lutyens even asked Bose to draw his likeness.

Bose became Principal of the Calcutta art school in 1945, a position he kept for two years. Partha Mitter believes that Bose's lasting achievement was his involvement with the (Indian) Academy of Fine Arts. In 1939, Bose had his first retrospective in Calcutta, which was reviewed favourably by Shahid Suhrawardy.

Havell was Principal of the Madras School of Industrial Arts from 1884 to 1892 and Principal of the Calcutta School of Art and Keeper of the Government Art Gallery from 1896 until 1906. In Calcutta, Havell worked with Abanindranath Tagore, nephew of Rabindranath Tagore, in developing a Bengal School of Art by reforming the art education at the Calcutta School of Art to gain inspiration from Mughal art rather than western methods.

In February 1910, Havell gave a lecture in London to the Royal Society of Arts on Indian Art, to which the Chair, George Birdwood, responded that India had no fine art tradition. Partly as a response to this, Havell was instrumental in founding the India Society - he convened a meeting at his house in March 1910 where the idea of the Society was concretized. The India Society was formed to bring attention to Indian Art in Britain and the West. The Society organized lectures, exhibitions and produced publications on Indian Art, including Havell's 1920 publication of a Handbook of Indian Art.

Havell was also appointed to the Indian Section Committee of the Festival of Empire held at Crystal Palace in 1911. From 1916 to 1923 Havell was a member of the British legation in Copenhagen. He died on 30 December 1934 at the Acland Nursing Home, Oxford.

Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy was born to Justice Sir Zahid Suhrawardy and Khujesta Akhtar Banu in Midnapur, Bengal (now West Bengal), India, on 8 September 1892. He received his early education from his mother and his uncle, Sir Abdullah al-Mamun (who had studied at Oxford University and been a founder-member of the Pan Islamic Society in London), before he entered the Calcutta Aliya Madrasah and graduated with honours in science from St. Xavier's College. He obtained an MA degree in Arabic Calcutta University in 1913 before leaving for England later that year.

In England he enrolled at Oxford University, where he graduated in science with honours and received his BCL degree. His elder (and only) brother, Hasan Shahid Suhrawardy, graduated from Oxford as well, and both were involved with the Oxford Majlis. Huseyn was called to the Bar at Gray's Inn in 1918 and returned to Calcutta in 1920 where he started practising as a barrister.

Soon after returning to India, Suhrawardy married Begum Naiz Fatima, the daughter of Sir Abdur Rahim, who was a judge of the Calcutta High Court, a member of the Governor's Executive Council and president of the Indian Legislative Assembly. Begum Naiz died in 1922. They had one son, Shahab Suhrawardy, who died in London in 1940 while pursuing his studies at Oxford, and one daughter, Akhter Jahan Suhrawardy, who married Shah Ahmed Sulaiman, the son of Sir Mohammad Sulaiman.

He joined the Swaraj Party, under the leadership of C. R. Das, in 1923 and became Deputy Mayor of Calcutta in 1924. After the death of Das, Suhrawardy turned to separatist policies and eventually joined the All India Muslim League. In 1946, Suhrawardy headed the Muslim League government, as Prime Minister, in Bengal. On 16 August 1946, mobs of Muslims attacked Hindus in their demand for a Pakistan. Suhrawardy is often held responsible for not intervening. In 1956, Iskander Mirza made Suhrawardy Prime Minister after Chaudhry Muhammad Ali had resigned. However, due to the political turmoil of Pakistan at that time, he resigned on 17 October 1957. After being disqualified from politics by Muhammad Ayub Khan, Suhrawardy relocated to Lebanon where he died in 1963.

As a student at Oxford, Hasan Shahid Suhrawardy helped Robert Bridges (poet laureate) select the 'oriental' poems for The Spirit of the Man (London: Longmans, 1915). On 29 November 1915, Suhrawardy, with D. H. Lawrence and Philip Arnold Heseltine, visited Lady Ottoline Morrell. [A photo of which, taken by Lady Ottoline, is available in the National Portrait Gallery.] Other guests recorded in the visitors' book that day included Aldous Huxley.

Suhrawardy was a poet and art critic, who also worked as a diplomat. He was the son of Justice Sir Zahid Suhrawardy and Khujesta Akhtar Banu and nephew of Abdullah Al-Mamun Suhrawardy who had also studied at Oxford. Suhrawardy was a graduate of Presidency College, Calcutta, before sailing for England. After graduating from Oxford, he taught English at the Imperial University of St Petersburg and at the Women's University in Moscow. Amongst his students was Alexander Kerensky, the Prime Minister of Russia. Suhrawardy was a member of the producers' committee at the Moscow Art Theatre and worked with the composer, Igor Stravinsky. He witnessed the Bolshevik Revolution of 1919 and then moved to France. He returned to India in the 1920s to pursue research in art, teaching in Calcutta and Hyderabad. He also translated works from Russian and Chinese into English.

His younger brother, Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy, who was at Oxford at the same time, was Prime Minister (the post now called Chief Minister) of Bengal in 1946 and Prime Minister of Pakistan, 1956-7. Due to similar sounding names and the same initials with his brother, Hasan Shahid Suhrawardy is often known as Shahid Suhrawardy. He should also not be confused with his uncle Sir Hassan Suhrawardy.