One of the most important South Asian artists of the twentieth century, Syed Ahmed Sadequain Naqvi was born in Amroha in Uttar Pradesh in pre-Partition India and grew up in a family that highly valued calligraphy. He moved to Delhi in 1944 to work as a calligrapher-copyist with All India Radio where his elder brother was also working, but shifted to Pakistan following Partition. Moving between jobs for a few years in his new homeland, Sadequain devoted himself fully to the arts in 1955 after his fame as an artist rose with the patronage of the country’s prime minister, Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy. Learn More
Born in Devakottai in Tamil Nadu, Rm. Palaniappan often incorporates the syntax of the sciences such as diagrammatic notations, and symbols, in his work. The memory of the first sight of the earth from above, while on a flight, also appears frequently in the form of maps, grids, and aerial terrain. Another important trope in his works has been imagery associated with the flying machine, inspired by his fascination with Second World War cinema. 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
Born in 1910 in Pabna, in present-day Bangladesh, Radha Charan Bagchi graduated from College of Arts and Crafts, Calcutta, in traditional Indian art, oil painting, and Western academism. Abanindranath Tagore, Mukul Dey and other Bengal masters were major influences but Bagchi evolved his own artistic style. In 1951, he joined Kala Bhavana, Santiniketan, as teacher, officiating twice as its principal in subsequent years. Learn More
Born in Bombay to eminent artist-couple Benode Behari and Leela Mukherjee, Mrinalini Mukherjee gave a new dimension to modern sculpture in India with works made in natural materials such as woven vegetable fibres of hemp. She studied at the Faculty of Fine Arts, M. S. University, Baroda, under artist-teacher K. G. Subramanyan, receiving a post diploma in mural design. Learn More
Madhvi Parekh was born and raised in Sanjaya, a village in Gujarat. Though she is self-taught and took up painting only in 1964, inspired by her artist-husband Manu Parekh, art remained a part of her consciousness through childhood memories, her family’s rituals such as the traditional floor designs of rangoli, popular folk stories, and simple village life. While expecting their first child, Parekh’s husband gifted her a book on drawing exercises by Paul Klee, and soon she was taking the first steps towards creating her own art vocabulary. Learn More
Born in Nashik, Maharashtra, M. S. Joshi studied at Sir J. J. School of Art, Bombay, in the 1930s. Joshi combined his training in academic realism with a sense of vitality, precision and aesthetics to reveal India’s rich cityscapes and landscapes in his watercolour and gouache works. There was immense depth in the rendering of his subjects, which included people, places, architectural elements, all done in a subdued yet textured palette. Learn More
Born in Suri, Bengal, in 1937, Lalu Prasad Shaw obtained a diploma in painting from the Government College of Art and Craft, Calcutta, in 1959. Despite training in Company School art, traditional Kalighat pats and Ajanta cave frescos, Shaw evolved his distinctive style to work in watercolours and oil. His teachers were some of the leading artists of the time, such as Gopal Ghose, Rathin Maitra, and Maniklal Banerjee. 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
Born on 15 February 1939 in Faridpur (now in Bangladesh), Jogen Chowdhury’s family moved to Calcutta following the Partition. He studied art at the Government College of Art and Crafts, Calcutta, and subsequently at École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts, Paris. Learn More
Born in 1937 in Calcutta, Ganesh Pyne lost his father before his teens and personally witnessed the horrors of Partition. The social violence and despair of the 1940s and the tumultuous political events of the 1970s had a deep impact on his psyche and work. Coupled with the influence of his grandmother’s stories, Pyne developed an individual style of poetic surrealism woven around mythology and Bengali folklore. Learn More
Born on 8 October 1926, in Faridpur (in present day Bangladesh), Biren De shifted to Calcutta with his family before Partition and studied at the Government College of Arts and Crafts. Later, he moved to New Delhi to teach at College of Art. Years spent in New York and extensive travelling over continents subsequently enriched his artistic expression with new forms. Learn More