Born to a family of artists in Kolhapur, Maharashtra, on 3 June 1890, Baburao Painter was a self-taught artist who excelled in both oil painting and sculpture. His skill in painting earned him the nickname ‘Painter’. His excellence in traditional sculpture is evident in the large statue he made of Mahatma Gandhi, installed in Kolhapur. Learn More
Born in Nagpur, B. Prabha became an artist at a time when not many Indian women practiced it as a profession. She studied at the Nagpur School of Art and obtained a diploma from Sir J. J. School of Art, Bombay, in 1955. Learn More
Bhabhesh Chandra Sanyal lived a unique life in the world of Indian art, witnessing the huge arc it cut across the twentieth century—he was born when the revivalist Bengal School was beginning to bloom, and by the time he passed away, modern Indian art had gone global and carved an international art market for itself. Learn More
Born in Simla on 28 August 1931, Avinash Chandra studied painting at Delhi Polytechnic, where he also taught for a few years. His students included Paramjit Singh and Arpita Singh, who would go on to make a name for themselves in later years. 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
Taking up art early, Anjolie Ela Menon had sold her first painting by the age of fifteen. Of mixed Bengali and American parentage, Menon was born in Burnpur in West Bengal in 1940. Learn More
Born in Delhi in 1947, Amitava Das graduated from College of Art, New Delhi, in 1972. At the time, he was part of New Group and Artists’ Forum, and in the same decade won Lalit Kala Akademi’s national award. In 1989, he won a fellowship to study exhibition and graphic design in Germany. Learn More
It was a radical shift for the commerce and art graduate Amit Ambalal, born in a Gujarati business family, to give up the family’s textile business in order to pursue painting. Learn More
Born in Baroda, Altaf Mohamedi’s interest in painting began while at the Scindia School in Gwalior under the tutelage of his art instructor Niyogi. His nascent interest was also encouraged by his elder sister and noted painter Nasreen Mohamedi. Learn More
Belonging to the first generation of postcolonial Indian artists that sought cosmopolitan freedom in Paris and London during the 1950s and ’60s, Akbar Padamsee developed his images within the genres of portraiture and landscape as refracted through the prism of high modernism. Learn More
An artist who died with the brush in his hand like a true devotee of his profession, Abani Sen graduated from the Government School of Art, Calcutta, under Percy Brown. Learn More
Abalal Rahiman was born in Kolhapur, Maharashtra, as Abdul Aziz in a family traditionally involved in making artistic manuscripts of the Quran, and is best remembered for his academic-realist landscapes and portraits. Learn More