Dr Dinanath Pathy awarded Odisha Kalagaurab after his death.

Dr Dinanath Pathy, who died in 2017, was one of the defining voices of Odishan Modernism, but he always made life difficult for his admirers. As he aged, he tended to make light of his early work, or resketch it completely. Occasionally, these meddlings—these wasplike buzzings about—could be injudicious. Dinanath was not the best custodian of his own work. At last, a complete collection—variants and all—of his writings and paintings , from first to last, has been chronologically ordered.

Dinanath was born in 1942 at Digapahandi, Ganjam, Odisha, but by 1965 had settled in Bhuneswar with his family. And there he stayed. Dinanath Pathy was an Indian painter, author and art historian from the state of Odisha. Pathy was the former secretary of Lalit Kala Akademi in New Delhi and Bhubaneswar. He was the founding principal of the Bibhuti Kanungo College of Art and Crafts. Pathy was awarded with President of India Silver Plaque for painting, Odisha Sahitya Academy Award for autobiography "Digapahandira Drawing Master", and Jawaharlal Nehru Fellowship for his research in art. He was nominated for the International Rietberg Award from Rietberg Society in 2014 for his contributions to research on Indian art history. Pathy authored over 50 books in English, Odia and German on classical, traditional, tribal, folk, rural and contemporary art of Odisha. He worked as the arts and crafts curator in Odisha State Museum. He was the founder principal of Bibhuti Kanungo College of Art and Crafts, Bhubaneswar.

Pathy was the secretary of Lalit Kala Akademi in New Delhi and president of Odisha Lalit Kala Akademi, Bhubaneswar. He worked with the Eberhard Fischer, former director of Emeritus, Rietberg Museum for over thirty years to promote the arts of Odisha globally.

Sometimes it is difficult to tell exactly what he is writing about because his paintings are always tacking sideways, reaching out for ever more oddball comparisons—on one occasion he likened Handel to a frigate pelican. His manner of writing can be positively in its degree of verbal attentiveness. Dr Dinanath Pathy was a practicing master painter, cultural historian and creative writer. He has published sixty books in English, German and Odia. Some of these have been written in collaboration with Dr. Eberhard Fischer. He has exhibited extensively in India and abroad. As he aged, his works became more moralistic, and Dinanath himself became a literary celebrity, seen about town in his cape. He rather enjoyed it, and even played up to it. This year in Silpi Utsav for his masterful achievements all the juries unanimously decided Dr Dinanth Pathy as Odisha Kalagauraba the most prestigious Art Award of Odisha.