B. Prabha

B. PRABHA (India, 1933-2001).
"Indian woman". 1987.
Oil on canvas (without stretcher frame).
Signed in the left margin.
Attached certificate of authenticity issued by Nayana Salmalkar.
Measurements: 90 x 60,5 cm.

The elegant and stylized pensive women like the one that we show here populated great part of the paintings of B. Prabha. Indian women of rural environments, placed in barely insinuated places (here, seated on the rough ledge of a millenarian tree) and with an almost monochromatic palette with predominance of earthy and sienna colors.

B. Prabha was a prolific Indian artist. He participated in more than 50 exhibitions. His work is part of important art collections, such as the National Gallery of Modern Art of India, the TIFR Art Collection and the Air India Art Collection. Prabha began working at a time when there were few women artists in India. She was inspired by the work of Amrita Sher-Gil. Like Sher-Gil, the protagonists of Prabha's works are often women. She was moved by the plight of rural women and they eventually became the main subject of her work. In an interview with Youngbuzz India, he said, "I have yet to see a single happy woman." His paintings also covered a wide range of subjects, from landscapes to social issues such as drought, famine and homelessness. B. Prabha grew up in the small village of Bela, near Nagpur in Maharashtra. She studied at the Nagpur School of Art, before moving to Bombay on a scholarship, where she completed her Diploma in Painting and Mural Painting at the Sir J. J. School of Art in 1954. There she met her husband, artist and sculptor B. Vithal, whom she married in 1956. At her first exhibition, held while she was still a student at the art school, Homi J. Bhabha, an eminent nuclear scientist and patron of the arts, acquired three paintings by Prabha for the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research's flagship art collection. Prabha's signature formal style would soon shift from modern abstraction to a more decorative figuration. "Air India" purchased its first lot of six paintings for Rs. 87.50 in 1956 from B. Prabha, then still a young art graduate. Prabha walked into Air India's art department and asked if the company would buy some of her paintings of Indian women. Officials agreed and a new art collection was born. The "Maharaja Collection," as it came to be called, expanded to 4,000 works over the next six decades and more, becoming one of India's most important art collections. The collection, which began with Prabha, aimed to put a little bit of India, both past and modern present, in the airline's offices and spaces around the world.