Kalighat paintings or 'patas' were first created in Bengal in the mid 19th century by traditional scroll painters known as 'patuas' who had moved to Kolkata attracted by its prosperity as the capital of British Indian and by the newly established Calcutta School of Art there. To make a living, these artists began painting around the old Kali temple in the city's southern Kalighat neighbourhood, and selling their quickly executed works to devotees and tourists visiting the shrine as souvenirs. Blending Indian subjects with newly learned Western techniques, these unique paintings with their characteristic bold, single-stroke outlines soon came to be classified as a distinct, urban school of painting in India. Kalighat paintings are known fortheir simple subjects, swift execution, vivid colours, lack of perspective, generously curved figures, and also their satirical undertones.Almost entirely displaced by cheaper printed versions in the 1940s, today, the tradition of Kalighat painting has been renewed by some of the descendents of the original patuas like Anwar Chitrakar. In addition, the tradition has evolved, and contemporary Kalighat paintings reflect a number of new subjects including modern family life, social evils and globalevents.

Kalam Patua was born in 1962 and learned to paint from Baidyanath Patua, his uncle who painted and made clay idols in Murshidabad, West Bengal. Kalam Patua's paintings are often recognized as a revival of Kalighat painting style. heis placed in the genealogy of its historic practitioners and thus his works have come to be known as "Kalighat Paintings". Alternatively, he also can be linked to a lineage of provincial painters from Murshidabad of the seventeeth and eigthteenth centuries to whom the "original" or "historical" Kalighat painters also can trace an artistic connection. Since 1983, he has participated in a number of national and international exhibitions including a solo show curated by Jyotindra Jain at Gallery Espace, New Delhi (2003) and the The Margi and The Desi, curated by Alka Pande at Lalit Kala Akademi, New Delhi (2004). His works are a part of the permanent collection of the National Gallery of Modern Art, New Delhi and in several private collectionsin India and abroad. He has won several State and National awards.