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 Nilima Sheikh describes herself as part of the third generation of artists who have engaged with Indian traditions. To be specific, there was the generation of Abanindranath Tagore, Nandalal Bose and Benode Behari Mukherjee followed by the one of their student K G Subramanyan from whom she has sought inspiration.
The artist, trained initially in Western-style oil painting, has spent almost all of her student and professional life in Baroda. Nilima Sheikh was born in 1945 in New Delhi. She studied history at the Delhi University (1962-65) and painting at the Faculty of Fine Arts, Baroda. (MA Fine, 1971). She has taught painting at the Faculty between 1977 and 1981. According to her, Baroda, in the '60s, was certainly identified with modernism. There was an attempt to clear the deadwood that had accrued around the older Santiniketan experiment. At the same time, many of the influential teachers recognized the value of history and of reinventing tradition.
She elaborates to say, "Baroda saw itself as quite distinct from the Progressive painters of Bombay. After all, K.G. Subramanyan was very active in Baroda during my student days, as a teacher, ideologue, and as an artist. He was definitely as interested in exploring Indian craft traditions as in painting in oils. And his concerns were all about bridging these dichotomies. He was a great inspiration to me." Nilima Sheikh claims a lineage born of pre-independence Indian nationalism fostered in the climate of progressive internationalism of the 1940s and 1950s. Sheikh turned her attention to miniature painting mid-career. Her relationship to pre-modern painting has been thus more geared toward its visual forms than its technical aspects.
Apart from exhibiting her work in India and internationally, the artist has lectured on Indian art at many venues in India and internationally. "Conversations with Traditions: Nilima Sheikh and Shahzia Sikander" that presented paintings by the two artists from the disparate religious and aesthetic cultures of India and Pakistan, as part of the inaugural celebration of the new Asia Society Museum in New York in 2001-2002, is one of her memorable shows. It presented about 30 individual works by each artist, including work from their early encounters with miniature painting as well as recent work suggesting the changing nature of such relationships. Additionally, the artists created a specially commissioned collaborative work.
Source:
Saffron Fine Art
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