November - Week 1

Written 09/11/2025

Photo of a late middle aged Indian woman, she is wearing a bindi and is smiling widely

Who am I studying?

This month I am studying an Indian artist, B. Prabha.

Short biography

So B. Prabha (born Prabha Nagge) was born in 1933 (making her only three years older than my grandma actually) in Maharashtra in the west of India. Not much is known about her early life, but she was inspired by modernist and impressionist artists - especially the Indian-Hungarian modernist Amrita Sher-Gil to study and pursue art herself.

She studied at the Nagpur School of Art before moving to Bombay, where she completed her Diploma in Painting and Mural Painting at the Sir J. J. School of Art in the mid 1950s.

She met her husband B. Vithal, who was a sculptor and painter, in Bombay and they married in 1956. This is when Prabha Nagge became B. Prabha (the B is short for Badwelgar but all sources I could find only refer to her as 'B. Prabha').

She had a very prolific career, in her lifetime her work was shown in over 50 exhibitions (some jointly with her husband). A big focus of her work is women, specifically poor rural women. She cared deeply for the plight of women and painted their misery though not in a garish way, but moreso her female figures often look sorrowful.

She died in 2001, so we have four years of overlap (since I was born in 1997).

Why I chose her

I wanted to study more non-Western artists and when I viewed her work I was very mesmerised by it. There was something mundane but also magical? Like the events are often mundane but the elongated bodies and bold colours make it seem a bit surreal.

Examples of her work

I will preface by noting that a lot of her artwork doesn't have a title I could find. So I gave my own "titles" (in quotation marks) for those pieces.

A stylised oil painting of a woman with a basket of fish, her skin is lit with blue light, making the dark brown look more purple
Fisherwoman, 1969. I REALLY like the lighting for this one. It really helps get the somewhat gloomy mood across.
A stylised oil painting of two Indian women wearing white saris. They are sat in contemplation. Their hands, feet and limbs are very elongated.
Two Women, 1970. I like how the woman in the foreground is holding onto her sari, like this moment is so tranquil. And I think her stylisation of the proportions helps here, as the oversized hands really feel like they are pulling at the sari.
A painting of a stylised woman holding a dead seeming child, both are heavily shadowed. The background is dark and aggressive and evokes bombs exploding.
"Mother And Son", 1995. This one is very tragic, I can really feel the mother's grief and anger and the background being so aggressively painted makes me think of bombfire or an explosion or just war in general. I alas don't know the context of this piece, but out of context it feels like an anti-war piece.
An oil painting of a bowl of flowers, with a very bold black outline around the composition. The background is a messy mix of white and grey.
"Flowers", 1993. These flowers almost feel... groovy! I love the contrast of the delicate paintwork of the flowers and leaves with the BOLD outline around them. It really helps make them stand out!
A stylised oil painting of a woman sat down while the wind is blowing her hair and sari forcefully. The flowers in the foreground are almost at a right angle due to the force of the wind.
"Wind", 1981. I can almost feel the force of the wind in this one! I especially love how the flowers are almost at a right angle. It definitely has the feel of surrealism despite depicting something that 'could' feasibly happen due to the exaggerated poses of both the woman and the environmental objects around her.
A very stylised (almost Picasso-esque) painting of a woman in despair. Her head, torso and the background look like different quilt patterns.
Sorrow, Unknown (1950s maybe?). I THINK this is one of her earlier pieces, since she experimented with her style in her early career before 'settling' on oil on canvas and it doesn't really look to be in her 'style' as much. I still love this piece though, I think the emotion is conveyed effectively with just some lines, it has been abstracted to almost purely being that singular emotion.

Links to more info about her