Born in 1922, pioneering modernist sculptor Ardeshir M. Davierwalla—fondly called Adi—was a pharmaceutical chemist by training; he went to school in Coonoor, Tamil Nadu, and studied pharmaceutical engineering at the Victoria Jubilee Technical Institute (now known as the Veermata Jijabai Technological Institute) in Bombay. Learn More
Born in Lyallpur in 1933 in pre-Partition Punjab, Ved Nayar’s earliest creative urges were born out of his close engagement with the jungle around his house. He moved to Delhi as a teenager following Partition and obtained a B.A. degree from the city’s St. Stephen’s College in 1952. He then joined Delhi Polytechnic in 1957 and participated in Lalit Kala Akademi’s national exhibition the same year. Learn More
In Vasundhara Tewari Broota’s practice, the woman is celebrated as a strong force, a ‘subject’ to be understood at a deeper level. Broota studied English literature from Delhi University, did a year of law studies, and pursued art studies from Triveni Kala Sangam, New Delhi. From using palette knives, rollers, even silver leaf, Broota’s techniques have emerged from an intense creative struggle that she has experienced as an artist. Learn More
The most definitive painter of the portraits of the Sikh gurus, Sobha Singh was born on 29 November 1901 at Gurdaspur in the Punjab. Interested in the arts since childhood, he learnt to draw and sculpt on his own, the early death of his parents depriving him of formal training in art. He joined the British Indian army as a draughtsman and continued to learn from studying the works of English and European artists. Learn More
Born on 31 October 1958 in Bangalore, Rekha Rodwittiya is an artist aligned with the Baroda School whose work engages with gender politics, socio-political subjugation, human degradation, violence and discrimination, all filtered through the prism of self-questioning. Learn More
The search for abstraction in Indian art in the early years of Independence was born out of a desire among artists to attain an independent idiom of modernism. Rooted in the country’s philosophical and religious aesthetic, Prabhakar Kolte is among the leading practitioners engaged in this quest. A master of poetic and metaphysical abstractionism, Kolte received a diploma in painting from Sir J. J. School of Art, Bombay, in 1968. Initially, he freelanced as an illustrator, also working as a designer at Bombay Dyeing. Learn More
Well-known for his silkscreen prints, Paramjeet Singh was born and brought up in Jamshedpur in present-day Jharkhand where career prospects appeared limited to engineering or medicine. His parents hoped he would study architecture, but destiny had other plans as a friend took Singh to a local art class, which spurred his interest in drawing and painting. Learn More
Globally renowned filmmaker Satyajit Ray called his photographer Nemai Ghosh ‘Boswell with a camera, instead of a pen’. Just like James Boswell’s biography of English writer Samuel Johnson is considered the finest in the language, Ghosh’s photo-biography of his mentor is one of the finest photo essays on a legend’s life; Ghosh was Ray’s photographer from 1968 until Ray’s death in 1992. Learn More
Born in Dhuri, Punjab, Manjit Bawa was encouraged by his brothers to pursue art and he studied at Delhi Polytechnic from 1958-63 under eminent artist-teachers Somnath Hore, Dhanraj Bhagat, B. C. Sanyal, and Abani Sen. He moved to England in 1964, where he worked as a silkscreen printmaker and studied at London School of Painting. Learn More
Born in Lyallpur in pre-Partition Punjab, Krishen Khanna grew up in Lahore. He studied at Imperial Service College, England, from 1938-42 as a Rudyard Kipling scholar. Returning to Lahore for a course in English literature at the Government College, he simultaneously took evening classes at the Mayo School of Art. Khanna briefly worked as a printer at Kapur Art Press, Lahore, before his family moved to Simla upon Partition. He worked at the Grindlays Bank in Bombay and Madras from 1946-61, subsequently resigning from his job to devote himself to art. 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
One of the earliest pioneers of European modernism in Indian sculpture, Hiranmoy Roychaudhuri studied under E. B. Havell at the Government School of Art, Calcutta in 1905. He was also one of the earliest Indian artists to go to England to study art; he went to the Royal College of Art, London, in 1910 to train in sculpture. Learn More