Sunil Das

Born in Calcutta in 1939, Sunil Das was one of India's most significant post-modernist painters. Trained at the Government College of Art and Craft, Kolkata, and later at the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts, Paris, his practice was shaped by studies in sculpture and graphic art as well as extensive travel in Europe and Spain. Known for constantly reinventing his visual language, Das worked across multiple phases marked by intense energy, rhythmic movement, and structural rigor. He is best recognised for his powerful drawings and paintings of horses and bulls, inspired by close observation in Kolkata and by Spanish bullfights, as well as for evocative series on women rendered in near-surreal forms. Working without models and often using his hands, he employed subdued palettes of browns, mauves, and whites to convey psychological depth and the drama of human experience. The only Indian artist to receive the Shiromani Kala Puraskar while still a student, he was later awarded the Padma Shri, and his works are held in major museum collections in India and abroad.