An early Indian abstractionist who forged his own vocabulary, distinct from the dominant forces that gripped India’s art community in the early years of Independence, Piraji Sagara came to be known for his collages made of wood relief amalgamated with abstract paintings. Learn More
Pakala Thirumal Reddy was born to a farmer’s family in Andhra Pradesh’s Karimnagar district. Defying his family’s opposition to art as a professional practice and fascinated with colour and form in his childhood, Reddy joined Sir J. J. School of Art, Bombay, on a scholarship, to study painting. Learn More
Born in Shivpur Diyar in Ballia district of Uttar Pradesh, Muni Singh studied at College of Art, Lucknow. In 1963, he received formal training in fresco-making from Banasthali Vidyapith, Rajasthan. A contemporary of Badri Nath Arya, R. S. Bisht, and Sanat Chatterjee, Singh’s preferred medium was watercolour. He mastered the miniature style of painting—Mughal, Rajput, and Pahari—and translated it into his own idiom and technique. Learn More
Forced to paint signboards at the age of eleven when his father died, Krishna Shamrao Kulkarni battled numerous early struggles to achieve a pre-eminent place in modern Indian art. Born in a village in Belgaum in Karnataka in 1916, Kulkarni engaged with modernist techniques and mediums to create a highly individuated pictorial language. Learn More
Jaya Ganguly is known for turning the concept of aesthetics on its head while portraying social hypocrisies through her paintings. However, it’s not just the duplicity of the privileged vis-à-vis the have-nots that she seeks to express, but also the pretenses that the former keep up with in their comfortable yet orthodox existence. Learn More
Known for establishing the multi-arts complex, Bharat Bhavan, in Bhopal, and for foregrounding tribal art on the Indian art horizon, Jagdish Swaminathan took up the arts professionally later in life, despite an early aptitude towards drawing and painting. Learn More
An ‘India wanderer’, as he liked to call himself, Gopal Ghose spent his formative years away from Calcutta, where he was born on 5 December 1913. His art training began at the Maharaja School of Arts, Jaipur. From 1935-38, Ghose studied at the Government College of Art and Craft, Madras. Once, while painting on the Marina beach in Madras, he caught the attention of C. Rajagopalachari—statesman, activist, writer and leader of the Indian National Congress—who offered to arrange his further studies abroad, which the college authorities, however, did not permit. Learn More
Born Gulam Rasool Dar in a Shia Muslim family in Srinagar in Kashmir on 20 June 1929, the artist took on his wife’s Hindu name ‘Santosh’ as his own, in a move opposing patriarchy and religion. His father’s death forced a young Gulam to work as a signboard painter, papier-mâché artist, and weaver. He learnt to paint watercolour landscapes from Dina Nath Raina in Kashmir before studying under N. S. Bendre at M. S. University, Baroda, on the recommendation of S. H. Raza. In Baroda, he produced a large body of figurative and landscape works, mainly in the cubist style. Learn More