The Artists of the House

33 artists, from the masters of the twentieth century to painters at work today. Each is written about only as far as the record allows. Ask the house about any of them and you are answered the same day, by a named person.

A. V. Ilango

b. 1950 · Gobichettipalayam, Tamil Nadu · Painter and sculptor

A. V. Ilango was born on 17 March 1950 in Gobichettipalayam, a town in Tamil Nadu. He is based in Chennai. Sources describe him as largely self trained, with a Master's degree in mathematics from Bangalore University, and note that he made his debut as an artist in 1973.

His best known theme is the bull, which he traces from prehistory to the modern era as an image closely tied to humanity. The motif appears in his Jallikattu series, across canvases as well as metal and stone sculptures. His rural upbringing, where art, religion and ritual are part of daily life, shaped this work. He founded Artspace in Chennai in 2007, and was named a British Council Visitorship artist in 1992.

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Akbar Padamsee

1928 to 2020 · Mumbai · Painter and printmaker

Akbar Padamsee was born in Mumbai in 1928 and studied at the Sir J.J. School of Art. He was associated with the Progressive Artists' Group and is counted among the pioneers of modern Indian painting. He moved to France in 1951 and received a prize from Andre Breton in 1952. His first solo exhibition in Mumbai was held at the Jehangir Art Gallery in 1954.

He is known for his Metascapes, abstract non figurative landscapes, and for his Mirror Images of heads and figures, and he also worked in sculpture, printmaking, photography and film. He showed at the Venice Biennale in 1953 and 1955 and received the Lalit Kala Akademi gold medal in 1962. In 1969 he used a Jawaharlal Nehru Fellowship to found the VIEW workshop. He received the Padma Bhushan in 2010 and died in 2020.

Photograph: Unknown author, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

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Chandra Morkonda

b. 1989 · Srikalahasti, Andhra Pradesh · Acrylic painter

Chandra Morkonda was born in 1989 in the temple town of Srikalahasti in Andhra Pradesh. He completed a Bachelor of Fine Arts in painting at JNTU Hyderabad in 2011 and a Master of Fine Arts in graphics at Kala Bhavana, Visva Bharati, Santiniketan, in 2014.

He paints in acrylic on canvas. Platform profiles say he grew up surrounded by the patterns and textures of sarees, and that he is drawn to trees and the deities associated with them. Solo shows listed include Kalpavruksha at Forum Art Gallery, Chennai, in 2016, and a Vahana series in 2018. He has also exhibited in several Indian cities and in Taipei in 2019.

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J. M. S. Mani

1949 to 2021 · Bangalore · Painter

J. M. S. Mani, also written as J. M. Subramani, was a painter from Karnataka, born in Bangalore in 1949. In 1974 he began his training under R. M. Hadapad at the Ken School of Art, part of the Kuvempu Kala Sanstha, and completed a diploma in drawing and painting there. He later taught at the school and retired as its principal in 2007.

He is best known for the Badami series, inspired by the hometown of his teacher, and for his Mother and Child series, landscapes and views of Hampi. His work is described as earthy and vivid, with forceful strokes and dark skinned figures, joining Indian subjects with Western formalism. He received the Karnataka State Award in 2006 and held solo exhibitions in India, Hong Kong, London, Switzerland and New York. He died in 2021.

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Jacob Jebaraj

Jacob Jebaraj is a contemporary artist associated with the Cholamandal Artists' Village near Chennai. He works in serigraphy and large mixed-media pieces, and his prints look at how news and information are seen, alongside a long-running attention to nature: leaves, bark, rust and stain.

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Lalitha Lajmi

1932 to 2023 · Calcutta (Kolkata) · Painter and printmaker

Lalitha Lajmi, also spelled Lalita, was an Indian painter born in Calcutta in 1932. She was largely self taught and later enrolled at the Sir J. J. School of Art in Mumbai to complete a master's degree in art. She began painting seriously in the 1960s and held her first solo exhibition at the Jehangir Art Gallery in Mumbai in 1961.

Her early work was largely autobiographical, and later work explored relations between men and women and between mothers and daughters. Her figures include women, children and clowns, and she drew on Durga and Kali imagery. She received the Bombay Art Society Award for etching in 1977 and a Government of India Junior Fellowship from 1979 to 1983. Her work is held by the National Gallery of Modern Art and the British Museum. She died in 2023, soon after a retrospective at the National Gallery of Modern Art in Mumbai.

Photograph: Suhas Bahulkar, Deepak Ghare, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

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Laxma Goud

b. 1940 · Nizampur, Medak (now Telangana)

Laxma Goud was born on 21 August 1940 in Nizampur, in what was then Hyderabad State and is now Telangana. He took a diploma in drawing and painting at the Government College of Art and Architecture, Hyderabad, in 1963, and later studied mural painting and printmaking at M.S. University, Baroda.

A painter, printmaker and draughtsman, he works in etching, gouache, pastel, sculpture and glass painting, and is best known for early drawings of rural life and for the quality of his etchings and aquatints. He lives and works in Hyderabad.

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Laxman Aelay

b. 1965 · Kadirenigudem, Nalgonda district, Telangana · Painter

Laxman Aelay is an Indian painter from Telangana, born in Kadirenigudem in Nalgonda district, commonly given as 1965. He comes from a family of weavers. He began as a signboard painter and worked as a cut and paste artist for the Telugu daily Eenadu before becoming known as an illustrator and book designer.

His paintings draw on the lives of the villagers of Kadirenigudem, often shown against the backdrop of their homes. He has worked in monochrome and, in his Poolamma series, in hyperrealism with bold colour. He held his first solo show at the ICCR Art Gallery in Hyderabad in 1999 and received an award from the Hyderabad Art Society in 1995. In 2014 he designed the logo of the newly formed state of Telangana.

Photograph: Pranayraj1985, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

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M. F. Husain

1915 to 2011 · Pandharpur, Maharashtra · Painter

Maqbool Fida Husain was born in Pandharpur in 1915 and moved to Bombay in the 1930s, where he painted cinema hoardings and designed toys. He attended the Sir J. J. School of Art but did not finish. In 1947 he became a founding member of the Bombay Progressive Artists' Group, formed to move away from academic and revivalist styles.

He is known for bold narrative paintings in a modified Cubist style, on themes including Indian urban and rural life, the Ramayana and the Mahabharata, Mahatma Gandhi and Mother Teresa. His first solo exhibition was held in Zurich in 1952, and he was invited to the Sao Paulo Biennial in 1971. He received the Padma Shri, Padma Bhushan and Padma Vibhushan, and won the Golden Bear for his film Through the Eyes of a Painter. He died in London in 2011.

Photograph: Habib Rahman, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

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Prafulla Dahanukar

1934 to 2014 · Goa

Prafulla Dahanukar (1934 to 2014) was born in Goa, raised in Mumbai, and graduated from the Sir J.J. School of Art in 1955 with a gold medal. A French government scholarship took her to the École des Beaux-Arts and Atelier 17 in Paris, where she held an exhibition in 1961.

Close to the Bombay Progressive Artists' circle, she is known for luminous, meditative abstractions in which lines, colour and volume settle into wide horizontal expanses, and for ceramic, wood and glass murals in buildings across Mumbai. She died in Mumbai on 1 March 2014.

Photograph: Prafulla Dahanukar, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

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Prakash Bal Joshi

Prakash Bal Joshi is a Mumbai based artist and writer who came to painting after a long career in journalism. He works in acrylic and oil, largely in abstraction, with a recurring river motif. In 2024 he was elected Chairman of the Artists' Centre, Mumbai, and held two Mumbai solo exhibitions that year: River Returns at the Artists' Centre in March and Inner Impressions at Artequest in August.

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Raja Ravi Varma

1848 to 1906 · Kilimanoor, Travancore · Oil painter and lithographic printer

Raja Ravi Varma was born on 29 April 1848 in Kilimanoor in the princely state of Travancore, now part of Kerala. His father was a Sanskrit and Ayurveda scholar, and he grew up familiar with the Puranas, the Mahabharata and the Ramayana, texts that later supplied the subjects of his paintings. His uncle, Raja Raja Varma, gave him his first lessons, and around 1862 he entered the Travancore royal court.

His work joined European academic realism with Indian subjects. He won first prize at the Madras Painting Exhibition in 1873 and was recognised at the Vienna Exhibition the same year. In 1894 he founded a chromolithographic press in Bombay, whose prints of gods and goddesses reached homes across India. He died in 1906.

Photograph: Bhawani Ram, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

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Ramesh Gorjala

b. 1979 · Srikalahasti, Andhra Pradesh · Kalamkari painter

Ramesh Gorjala is a contemporary painter from Srikalahasti in Andhra Pradesh who works in the Kalamkari tradition. Sources give his birth year as 1979 and describe his family as weavers. He took his first training from his uncle, the Kalamkari artist Balaji Theretham, and later earned a BFA and an MFA at Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University in Hyderabad.

He works in the hand drawn Srikalahasti style, painting Hindu gods and goddesses drawn from mythology, with detailed patterns and a palette of gold, red and green. He moved from vegetable dyes to acrylics on canvas and handwoven paper. He received the Mahatma Gandhi Birth Centenary Memorial Award in 2000 and a State Award from the Andhra Pradesh Crafts Council in 2002.

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Rini Dhumal

1948 to 2021 · Rangpur, Bangladesh · Painter and printmaker

Rini Dhumal was born in 1948 and died in 2021 in Vadodara, where she lived and worked for most of her adult life. She studied fine arts at the M.S. University of Baroda, where K.G. Subramanyan was among her teachers, then went to Paris on a French government scholarship to study printmaking with S.W. Hayter at Atelier 17, and later worked with Krishna Reddy.

She taught at M.S. University and became head of its painting department. Her solo exhibitions began in 1974 and were held in Paris, Chile, Germany, Spain, Japan and several Indian cities. Her work centres on female figures, often presented as goddesses, in dense layered imagery. She received the Chancellor's Gold Medal in 1972 and the Governor's Gold Medal in Calcutta in 1974.

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S. H. Raza

1922 to 2016 · Madhya Pradesh · Painter

Sayed Haider Raza was born in 1922 in Madhya Pradesh, where his father was a forest ranger. He studied at the Nagpur School of Art and the J.J. School of Art in Mumbai, and in 1947 he was a founder member of the Progressive Artists Group. He moved to France in 1950 and studied at the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris on a French government scholarship.

His early landscapes moved toward abstraction. From the 1970s he made visits to Ajanta, Ellora and other sites in India, and he developed the bindu, a point of origin, as his central motif. He died in 2016. He received the Padma Shri, Padma Bhushan and Padma Vibhushan, and his work is held by the National Gallery of Modern Art, New Delhi, and the Musee National d'Art Moderne, Paris.

Photograph: Chetan Nikam, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

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Seema Kohli

b. 1960 · Delhi · Painter and multimedia artist

Seema Kohli was born in Delhi in 1960, completed her graduate studies at Miranda House, University of Delhi, and lives and works in New Delhi. Her practice spans painting, murals, installation, performance, film and sculpture, and often uses gold and silver leaf. Her themes include the cosmic feminine and the Hiranyagarbha, or Golden Womb.

She won a gold medal at the Florence Biennale in 2009 for her film Swayamsiddha, and received the Lalit Kala Akademi National Award for Women in 2008. She has held more than 30 solo shows in cities including Venice, Brussels, London, New York, Dubai, Singapore, Delhi and Mumbai. Her works are in the collections of the National Gallery of Modern Art, Bangalore, and the Rubin Museum.

Photograph: Miss Pauli, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

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Sunil Das

1939 to 2015 · Calcutta (now Kolkata) · Expressionist painter and draughtsman

Sunil Das was born in Calcutta in 1939 and joined the Government College of Art and Craft there in 1955. He later won a French Government scholarship to study at the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris, where sources say he also worked in graphic art. He was a founder member of the Society of Contemporary Artists.

Das is best known for his Horse and Bull series, including charcoal drawings of horses in motion. Sources describe a spare, expressive style, and note that his passion for bulls grew from time spent in Spain. He also explored relations between men and women. He exhibited widely, including at the Sao Paulo Biennale in 1989, and received the Padma Shri in 2014. He died in Kolkata in 2015.

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Thota Vaikuntam

b. 1942 · Boorugupalli, Telangana

Thota Vaikuntam, born 1942 in Boorugupalli, Telangana, has spent his career painting the men and women of rural Telangana in flat saturated colour with heavy contour drawing. His figures, with their kohl lined eyes, red bindis and ornamented hair, are among the most immediately recognisable images in contemporary Indian painting.

He studied at the College of Fine Arts and Architecture in Hyderabad and at the Faculty of Fine Arts, M.S. University, Baroda, where K. G. Subramanyan was an influence. He is renowned above all for his portrayal of Telangana women, and has received the Bharat Bhavan Biennale Award, the National Award and the State Award.

Photograph: Mananrelia, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

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Tyeb Mehta

1925 to 2009 · Kapadvanj, Gujarat · Painter

Tyeb Mehta was born in Kapadvanj, Gujarat, in 1925 and grew up in the Crawford Market area of Mumbai. He first worked as a film editor, then took his diploma from the Sir J.J. School of Art in 1952. He became a member of the Bombay Progressive Artists Group and lived in London from 1959 to 1964, where the expressionism of Francis Bacon influenced him.

Mehta received a Rockefeller 3rd Fund fellowship in 1968 and spent time in New York. His recurring subjects include trussed bulls, rickshaw pullers, the Diagonal series, and later images of Kali and Mahishasura. He also made a short film, Koodal. His honours include the Kalidas Samman in 1988 and the Padma Bhushan in 2007. He died in Mumbai in 2009.

Photograph: Cea, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

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