Bhupen Khakhar

He was a set decorator, known for Kali Salwaar (2002) and Messages from Bhupen Khakhar (1983).

In 2000, Khakhar was honoured with the Prince Claus Award[1] at the Royal Palace of Amsterdam. Among other honours, he won the Asian Council's Starr Foundation Fellowship, 1986, and the prestigious Padma Shri (Indian Government's award for excellence) in 1984. His works can be found in the collections of the British Museum, The Tate Gallery, London, The Museum of Modern Art, New York, among others.

In the 1990s, Khakhar began experimenting more with watercolours and grew increasingly confident in both expression and technique. He found himself portrayed as "the accountant" in Salman Rushdie's novel The Moor's Last Sigh. Khakhar returned the favour by later making a portrait of the author that he called The Moor, and which is now housed within the National Portrait Gallery, London. In You Can't Please All (1981; London, Knoedler's) a life-size naked figure, a self-portrait, watches from a balcony, as father, son and donkey enact an ancient fable, winding through the townscape in continuous narration.

The artist's work celebrated the day to day struggles of India's common man. Khakhar's early paintings depicted average people, such as the barber, the watch repairman, and even an assistant accountant with whom he worked. The painter took special care to reproduce the environments of small Indian shops in these paintings, and revealed a talent for seeing the intriguing within the mundane. His work has been compared to that of David Hockney. He was a long standing personal friend of Howard Hodgkin who regularly came to stay with him after meeting in 1975.Though he was influenced by the British Pop movement, Khakhar understood that western versions of Pop Art would not have the same resonance in India.

Khakhar's oil paintings were often narrative and autobiographical. His first exhibited works presented deities cut from popular prints, glued onto mirrors, supplemented by graffiti and gestural marks. He began to mount solo exhibitions as early as 1965. Though the artist had been largely self-taught, his work soon garnered attention and critical praise. By the 1980s, Khakhar was enjoying solo shows in places as far away as London, Berlin, Amsterdam and Tokyo.

In 1958, Khakhar met the young Gujarati poet and painter Ghulam Mohammed Sheikh, who encouraged Khakhar's latent interest in art and encouraged him to come to the newly founded Faculty of Fine Arts in Baroda.

Bhupen Khakhar was born on March 10, 1934 in Bombay, Bombay Presidency, British India.