Himmat Shah

Himmat Shah was born in 1933. After an initial training as a drawing teacher he studied painting at the Faculty of Fine Arts, M. S. University, Baroda from 1956-60. He was the national cultural scholar 1956, and received a French Government scholarship and studied etching at Atelier 17, Paris, 1967.
His art explores materiality, texture and the question of presenting reality. It internalizes the built-in obsolescence of consumerist society. His gilded objects of clay, sculptures have the traces of paintings on them and the hieroglyphs of antiquity gouged on to series of heads placed side by side rhythmically like the metal plates of a xylophone. There are those self-mocking elements, crumbling and decaying.
The artist lives and works in New Delhi.

He has participated in major exhibitions including at Lalit Kala Academy - National Exhibition of art Triennale in 1968, Paris Biennale, 1970, Festival of India Exhibitions London, 1982 and has had several solo shows in Delhi and Mumbai since 1964 including the ones at Kunika Chemould Art Centre, New Delhi (1964), Gallery Chemould, New Delhi (1966), Dhoomimal Art Centre (1979) and Sakshi Gallery, Mumbai (1994).

The artist lives and works in New Delhi.