Somnath Hore was born in Chittagong (now Bangladesh) in 1921. He was a very talented student since childhood and had a special interest in art. From 1954 to 1958, he was also a teacher at the Indian College of Art and Draftsmanship and also passed the Diploma in Arts examination from Calcutta College in 1957.
From 1958 to 1967, he was the head of the graphics department at Delhi Arts College and a visiting professor at Baroda Arts College. In 1967, he moved to Kala Bhavan, Shanti Niketan, where he first held the post of Chairman of the Graphics Department and later, for a few years, the post of Principal of Visva Bharati University, Shanti Niketan. He stayed there till 1983.
Hoare held many exhibitions and received many awards. Lugano Biennial Graphic Exhibition of 1960, Tokyo Printing Biennial Exhibition of 1962 and 1964, Venice Triennial of 1962, Sao Paulo Biennial of 1963, First International Graphic Exhibition of 1974. Apart from New Delhi, his exhibitions were in Yugoslavia, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria, and Egypt. have also been organized.
He was honored with the National Award in 1960, 62 and 63. His paintings are in many collections in the country and abroad. Since 1981, he has also been a member of the Lalit Kala Academy, New Delhi.
Hore has been a communist by ideology. The famine in Bengal had a strong impact on his art. The contact with Vinod Bihari Mukherjee also awakened a new inspiration in him. Hoare holds a unique position as a graphic painter. Many graphic painters of Delhi and Baroda are his disciples and many other painters have been inspired by him.
