Bhuri Bai

Born in 1968, Bhuri Bai made her first wall painting at the age of ten in her village in the district of Jhabua, which lies on the border between Madhya Pradesh and Gujarat. After moving to Bhopal to find work she met Jagdish Swaminathan, artist, theoretician, and co-founder of Bharat Bhavan, who became her mentor. Bhuri Bai is the first woman in her tribe to paint on paper and canvas. She paints composition of fields in bright colors like paper cut-outs, sprinkled with colored dots. Her subjects highlight humorous conflicts between man vs nature as well as that of ravaged lands, and domestic and wild environments interspersed together. Bhuri Bai has participated in many exhibitions, including Freedom at the Cima Gallery in Calcutta in 2008, Now That The Trees Have Spoken at the Pundole Gallery in Mumbai in 2009, and Other Masters of India at the Musee du Quai Branly in Paris in 2010. One of her paintings was auctioned at Sotheby’s New York in 2007. She was awarded Padma Shri, the fourth highest civilian honor in 2021.