Akara Art

B. PRABHA

Akara Modern

1933 -2001

B. Prabha was born in the village of Bela, near Nagpur in Maharashtra. She studied at the Nagpur School of Art, after which she pursued a Diploma in Painting and Mural Painting from the Sir J.J. School of Art, Mumbai. A modern artist, B. Prabha experimented with different styles and mediums before resolving to oils as her preferred medium. She is known for her elegant formal style, which ranges from subjects such as landscapes to social issues of her time, like hunger and homelessness. She was an artist during a period in which women were highly oppressed in India, and her body of work is a reflection of and an ode to their plight. Using a single dominant colour, she is best known for graceful elongated figures of pensive rural women- a recurrent theme in her works. Inspired by Amrita Sher-Gil and her husband B. Vitthal, B. Prabha’s signature style has evolved from modern abstract forms to a more decorative figuration. Although her works today might seem like a straightforward documentation of the figures of rural women, a few decades ago, they were odes to the spirit and the status of the Indian woman.

Among her various solo exhibitions, one of particular note is ‘Shradhanjali’ in Mumbai in 1993, which was dedicated to her late husband B. Vithal. Prabha's work was also included in the group exhibition ‘Contemporary Indian Painters’ at Jehangir Art Gallery in Mumbai in 1996 and in the Bombay State Art Exhibition in 1958, where she was awarded the first prize.