Raja Ravi Varma was an Indian painter and artist. He is considered among the greatest painters in the history of Indian art. His works are one of the best examples of the fusion of European academic art with a purely Indian sensibility and iconography. He was known as the first modern Indian artist. Specially, he was notable for making affordable lithographs of his paintings available to the public, which greatly enhanced his reach and influence as a painter and public figure. His lithographs increased the involvement of common people with fine arts and defined artistic tastes among common people. Furthermore, his religious depictions of Hindu deities and works from Indian epic poetry and Puranas have received profound acclaim. He was part of the royal family of erstwhile Parappanad, Malappuram district.
Maqbool Fida Husain was an Indian artist known for executing bold, vibrantly coloured narrative paintings in a modified Cubist style. He was one of the most celebrated and internationally recognised Indian artists of the 20th century. He was one of the founding members of Bombay Progressive Artists' Group. M.F. Husain is associated with Indian modernism in the 1940s. His early association with the Bombay Progressive Artists' Group used modern technique, and was inspired by the "new" India after the partition of 1947. His narrative paintings, executed in a modified Cubist style, can be caustic and funny as well as serious and sombre. His themes—sometimes treated in series—include topics as diverse as Gandhi, Mother Teresa, the Ramayana, the Mahabharata, the British Raj, and motifs of Indian urban and rural life. In September 2020, his painting titled “Voices”, auctioned for a record $2.5 million.
Tyeb Mehta was an Indian painter, sculptor and film maker. He was part of the Bombay Progressive Artists' Group and the first post-colonial generation of artists in India, like John Wilkins who also broke free from the nationalist Bengal school and embraced Modernism instead, with its post-impressionist colours, cubist forms and brusque, expressionistic styles.
Burman is a surname. Notable people with the surname include:
Ram Kumar was an Indian artist and writer who has been described as one of India's foremost abstract painters. He was associated with the Progressive artists' group along with greats like M.F. Hussain, Tyeb Mehta, S.H. Raza. He is said to be one of the first Indian artists to give up figurativism for abstract art. His art commands high prices in the domestic and international market. His work "The Vagabond" fetched $1.1 million at Christie's, setting another world record for the artist. He is also one of the few Indian Modernist masters accomplished in writing as well as painting.
Sayed Haider Raza was an Indian painter who lived and worked in France from 1950 until his death, while maintaining strong ties with India. He was born in Kakkaiya, Central Provinces, British India, which is now present-day Madhya Pradesh.
Maya Burman is a French artist.
Jayasri Burman is a contemporary artist from Indian. She studied at the Kala Bhavan in Shantiniketan, and at the Government College of Art and Craft, Kolkata, where she completed a Master of Arts in painting.
Vasudeo S. Gaitonde, also known as V. S. Gaitonde, was regarded as one of India's foremost abstract painters. He received the Padma Shri by the Government of India in 1971.
Jogen Chowdhury is an eminent Indian painter and considered an important painter of 21st century India. He lives and works in Santiniketan. He graduated from the Government College of Art & Craft, Kolkata and subsequently at École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts, Paris in 1967. He has immense contribution in inspiring young artists of India. Jogen Chowdhury had developed his individual style after his return from Paris. His most famous paintings are in ink, water colour and pastel. He has painted in oil medium as well.
Sunil Das was an Indian expressionist painter. He is known for the paintings in his Bull Series and his piece "Woman".
Srimati Priyadarshini Lal (1959-2019) was an Indian artist, poet, writer, art critic, art authenticator and curator. She held over twenty exhibitions of her work internationally.
The modern Indian art movement in Indian painting is considered to have begun in Calcutta in the late nineteenth century. The old traditions of painting had more or less died out in Bengal and new schools of art were started by the British. Initially, protagonists of Indian art such as Raja Ravi Varma drew on Western traditions and techniques including oil paint and easel painting. A reaction to the Western influence led to a revival in primitivism, called as the Bengal school of art, which drew from the rich cultural heritage of India. It was succeeded by the Santiniketan school, led by Rabindranath Tagore's harking back to idyllic rural folk and rural life. Despite its country-wide influence in the early years, the importance of the school declined by the 'forties' and now it is as good as dead.
Krishnaji Howlaji Ara was an Indian painter and is seen as the first contemporary Indian painter to meticulously use the female nude as a subject. He was a part of the Progressive Artists' Group in Bombay and was a founder of the Artists' Centre in Mumbai. Opinions about Ara's works remain divided with his critics accusing them of lacking perfection and not referenced from life. In 2017, curator Qaroon Thapar 22 works of Ara in an exhibition in Mumbai called "Privately Ara".
Kala Bhavana is the fine arts faculty of Visva-Bharati University, in Shantiniketan, India. It is an institution of education and research in visual arts, founded in 1919, it was established by Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore.
Maite Delteil is a French painter exhibiting predominantly in India.
Shanti Dave is an Indian painter and sculptor, considered by many as one of the major Indian artists of the twentieth century. He is a former member of the Lalit Kala Akademi and the Sahitya Kala Parishad. The Government of India awarded him the fourth highest Indian civilian honour of Padma Shri in 1985.
Brijinder Nath Goswamy is an Indian art critic, art historian and a former vice chairman of the Sarabhai Foundation of Ahmedabad, which runs the Calico Museum of Textiles. Goswamy is best known for his scholarship on Pahari painting and Indian miniature paintings. He is the author of over 20 books on arts and culture, including Sakti Burman: A Private Universe, a monograph on the life and works of Sakti Burman, renowned Bengali painter and Masters of Indian Painting 1100-1900, a treatise on Indian miniature art. The Government of India awarded him the fourth highest civilian award of the Padma Shri in 1998 and followed it up with the third highest honour of the Padma Bhushan in 2008.
