భూపెన్ ఖాఖర్

Bhupen Khakhar developed a figurative practice attentive to everyday life and identity. Born in Bombay, he worked as an accountant before moving to Baroda in 1962 to study art criticism. Largely self-taught as a painter, he held his first solo exhibition in Bombay in 1965. His career developed within an environment where storytelling, social observation and Indian visual traditions played important roles.

His paintings bring ordinary people and familiar places into contact with episodes from mythology. He also explored desire and the social norms that shape gender identities. The human figure remains central to this investigation, carried through narrative compositions. His portrait of Salman Rushdie in the National Portrait Gallery reveals another aspect of his work, in which a personal encounter becomes the starting point for a painted image.