Born in 1941 in Dhuri, Punjab, Manjit Bawa is one of India’s most acclaimed artists. Encouraged heavily by his older brothers to pursue art, Bawa studied at the Delhi College of Art from 1958-1963 under eminent modern artists such as Somnath Hore, Dhanraj Bhagat and B.C. Sanyal. But it was Abani Sen who had a huge influence on Bawa, pushing him towards figurative work when others were leaning towards abstract. Sen made Manjit Bawa sketch constantly, and that practice made him develop his own distinct style, which is recognizable even today. Bawa went to London in 1964 where he worked...
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Sayed Haider Raza is one of the most prominent and groundbreaking Indian painters of his generation. During his training in France, Raza experimented with a variety of Modernist styles through landscape painting—first inspired by Expressionism, and later by geometric abstraction. In 1970, Raza began to paint purely geometric forms, particularly the circle and the dot, which he likened to the idea of the bindu. Though his style changed drastically over the course of his career, Raza’s works were all united in their emphasis on color, and their references to memory and mood. Raza was also responsible for founding the Bombay Progressive...
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Maqbool Fida Husain (better known as M.F. Husain) is the most internationally recognized Indian artist of the 20th century. Often called ‘Picasso of India’, Husain was born in 1913 in Maharashtra and passed away in London in 2011 at the age of 97. A self-taught artist, Husain was associated with Indian modernism in the 1940s and was a founding member of the Bombay Progressive Artists Group (PAG), inspired by post-partition India. A graduate of the J.J. School of Art, Husain’s paintings focused on a wide range of topics and people, such as Mahatma Gandhi, Mother Teresa, Mahabharata and Ramayana etc....
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