V.S. Gaitonde grew up in Nagpur, Maharashtra and studied at the J. J. School of Art. In 1947, he was invited to join the Progressive Artists’ Group and went on to become one of its original members. He worked with various mediums and used a roller and palette knives to create his own layered texture that became his signature style.

Manu Parekh was born in 1939 in Gujarat. Parekh completed a Diploma in Drawing and Painting from the Sir J.J. School of Art, Mumbai, in 1962. Parekh’s early work explored the relationships between man and nature, as he thought that it was an energetic link that had to be celebrated.

Maqbool Fida Husain was born in 1913 in Pandharpur, Maharashtra. In 1948, he was invited by F N Souza to join the Progressive Artists' Group in Mumbai. Husain began his career by painting billboards for feature films and making furniture designs and toys to earn a living. When he took up painting as an art form, he blended folk, tribal and mythological art to create vibrantly contemporary, living art forms.

Vivan Sundaram is the grandson of Umrao Singh Sher-Gil and nephew of Amrita Sher-Gill. His montages reinterpret photographs taken by his grandfather by showing the relationship between Amrita Sher-Gil and the people around her and is an exploration of Amrita’s life in India.

Somnath Hore’s art practice was western and academic in style. He was interested in humanist themes, and his works often involved the world of painting and printmaking with sculptural, textural prints that resonated with his feelings of anger and pain. His subject matter drew attention to the life of people in Bengal; the impoverished and suffering social class represented the pain caused by the Famine of 1943.

Francis Newton Souza was born in 1924 in Saligao, Goa. Souza was expelled for his behaviour while studying at the Sir J J School of Art in Mumbai. In 1947, he founded the Progressive Artists' Group along with S H Raza, M F Husain and K H Ara, among others. Souza's style created thought-provoking and powerful images.

Bimal Dasgupta spent his childhood in Behrampur in Bengal. After completing his art education from the Government College of Arts and Crafts, Calcutta, and he embarked on a career as a landscape artist. Bimal Dasgupta’s paintings present variations on the theme of petals. He painted landscapes that showed his appreciation for nature and colours. Although he was primarily interested in watercolours; he also experimented with acrylic paint and oil as well. However, his preferred medium remained watercolour after he found out that he was allergic to turpentine. Using an array of realistic images as well as completely abstract forms, Dasgupta used textural changes and bright colour schemes, making his landscapes come alive with shifting shapes and barely visible forms.

Ganesh Haloi, born in 1936 in Jamalpur (now in Bangladesh) moved to Calcutta after the partition. As a result, he had seen the country struggle for its freedom and its own identity. Haloi’s works are known for their composition of space, color, form, and narration.  Each has a different dialogue and tone through these factors.

Known for his Neo-Tantric paintings, Biren De molded an artistic career for himself across five decades, beginning as a portrait painter. The early works were figurative and strongly influenced by Post-Impressionist European painters. He gradually evolved into abstraction and by the sixties had abandoned figuration altogether, developing what became known as his signature ‘Neo-tantric’ style. His tantric style works show symmetrical patterns of geometry, concentric rings, crescents, and orbs. The presence of tantric symbols such as the mandala, phallus, and vagina which represent the masculine and feminine energies of the universe. De’s tantric works often had dark blues and bright reds which were meant to awaken the psyche towards an undivided consciousness.

Jamini Roy’s inspiration of folk art led him to experiment with sculpture along with paintings and sketches even though he had no formal sculpture training. This artwork depicts a preparatory sketch of three sculptures similar to crude dolls from folk art. The viewer can see the block of wood and how Roy has planned on removing sections to make a complete sculpture. While this doll sculpture looks different from the typical doll, it can be considered to be an altered, expressionist version of it. The drawings are works on their own but his sculptures are more than just complements to his drawings. Intrigued by shadows, frontal view, silhouettes and the profile view of the sculpture, Roy uses the sketches to plan out his ideas on paper.