Born in Bombay, Pestonji E. Bomanji joined Sir J. J. School of Art at the age of thirteen. While there, the principal, John Griffiths, identified his talent and appointed him a draughtsman on an expedition to the Ajanta caves in 1872, which he came to head in 1880. Though Bomanji initially wanted to be a sculptor, his interest in portraiture was triggered after 1877, when Griffiths recommended him as an apprentice to Valentine Prinsep, a visiting artist; he went on to train under John Lockwood Kipling. Learn More
N. R. Sardesai was born in 1885 in Ratnagiri, Maharashtra, and completed his early education at the Ratnagiri School of Industry. Here, he studied carpentry and drawing in 1906, before joining Sir J. J. School of Art, Bombay, for formal training in art. Thereafter, he began work as a drawing teacher in a school in Fort, Bombay. In 1915, he had a short stint as a drawing teacher at his alma mater too. Learn More
India’s first creatively trained printmaker and pioneer of dry point etching in the country, Mukul Chandra Dey was born on 23 July 1895 in Sridharkhola, Bengal. He joined Santiniketan’s Brahmacharya Ashram school at the age of eleven and trained in art under the Tagore family stalwarts, becoming a close associate of Abanindranath Tagore. Learn More
Born into a family of artists in Lahore on 21 September 1897, M. Abdur Rahman Chughtai learnt to draw from his father, Mia Karim Baksh. He joined Mayo School of Art in Lahore in 1911, where Samarendranath Gupta, a pupil of Abanindranath Tagore, was vice-principal. He obtained a diploma in photo lithography from Mayo School in 1914, where he went on to become the head instructor in chromo-lithography. He honed his printmaking skills during visits to London in the mid-1930s and exhibited his works across Europe; he also exhibited with Indian Society of Oriental Art in Calcutta around this time. Learn More
Kshitindranath Majumdar, born on July 31, 1891, in Jagtai village of Murshidabad in West Bengal, is often referred to as a saint-artist who considered art as a form of devotion. Strongly influenced by Vaishnavism as propounded by the fifteenth century saint, Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, Majumdar trained in hymn singing, interpreted legends from Indian epics, and acted in productions of the theatre group owned by his father. Learn More
The true pioneer of cubism in India and acclaimed for his satirical works of art, Gaganendranath Tagore was born on 17 September 1867. Along with his Nobel-laureate uncle Rabindranath Tagore, and brother Abanindranath Tagore, he was at the forefront of cultural revival in Bengal in the early twentieth century; the brothers established the Indian Society of Oriental Art, Calcutta, in 1907. Learn More
Devi Prasad Roy Chowdhury was born in Tajhat (in present day Bangladesh) in 15 June 15 1899. He learnt painting from Abanindranath Tagore, life drawing and portraiture from E. Boyess, and sculpting from Hiranmoy Roychoudhuri, with later training in Italy. Equally at ease with plaster and paint, he evolved his skills in bronze casting, and executed paintings that were an amalgam of the Chinese technique, the Japanese wash process, and his own scratching method, though his early paintings bore Tagore’s influence. Learn More
Born on 10 September 1890, at the Tagore mansion in Jorasanko, Calcutta, Asit Kumar Haldar was initiated into art by a traditional patua, Jhareshwar Chakravarty. Learn More
Archibald Herman Müller, born of German parentage in Cochin, Kerala, on 11 March 1878, lived and worked in India. He joined the Madras School of Art and received early recognition as an artist. Learn More
Zarina Hashmi née Rasheed (she dropped her surname in later life) was born on 16 July 1937 in Aligarh to Sheikh Abdur Rasheed, a professor of history at the Aligarh Muslim University (AMU). She was ten at the time of the Partition and the consequent events impacted her life and her art forever, especially since her family chose to migrate to Pakistan some years later. Learn More
Born in Purulia in West Bengal, Sunil Madhav Sen was a self-taught artist. Though he learned drawing as a child from a local teacher, he studied law and the liberal arts at Calcutta University and worked for the government. He pursued his passion for art privately alongside his legal practise, visiting the studios of Abanindranath Tagore, Atul Bose, J. P. Gangooly, and Satish Sinha. He also apprenticed for two years under Hemendranath Mazumdar, honing his skills in portrait painting. Learn More
Sudhir Ranjan Khastgir was born on 24 September 1907 in Chittagong in present-day Bangladesh, and studied at Kala Bhavana, Santiniketan, under Nandalal Bose. Like his classmate, Ramkinkar Baij, he took up sculpture as a subject, continuing its pursuit in Lucknow under Hiranmoy Roychaudhuri in 1932, and under Ganpath Kashinath Mahatre, in Bombay, in 1933. The same year, he joined Scindia School, Gwalior, as a teacher and, later, Doon School in Dehradun. Learn More