Arpita Singh

Arpita Singh (née Dutta; born 22 June 1937) is an Indian artist. Known as a figurative artist and a modernist, she creates canvases to have both a story line and a carnival of images arranged in a curiously subversive manner. Her artistic approach can be described as an expedition without destination. Her work reflects her background. She brings her inner vision of emotions to the art inspired by her own background and what she sees around the society that mainly affects women. Her works also include traditional Indian art forms and aesthetics, such as miniature painting and different forms of folk art, employing them in her work regularly.

Personal life Arpita was born on 22 June 1937 in Baranagar, Bengal Presidency (now West Bengal). She left the city with her mother and brother in 1946, a year before India got its independence from the British rule in 1947. In 1962, she married fellow artist Paramjit Singh and they had a daughter, artist Anjum Singh. Currently she lives in Nizamuddin East, New Delhi.

Education Arpita attended the Delhi Polytechnic in New Delhi from 1954 to 59 and graduated with a Diploma in Fine Arts.

Career After graduating, Arpita Singh worked at the Weavers' Service Centre under the, Ministry of Textiles, Government of India in New Delhi and experienced the textiles industry closely. Her stint as a textile designer reflects in her work. The Talwar Gallery showcased her works in their first ever exhibition, 'Tying Down Time', dedicated to Arpita Singh in 2017.

She took on a job with the Cottage Industries Restoration Program, a body of the Government of India. While she worked in the program, she met traditional artists and weavers of India. This is said to have impacted her artwork too.

Arpita Singh has significant contributions through a different social and political awareness. She was a founder member of the artists' group 'The Unknown', along with other alumni of the Department of Fine Arts of Delhi Polytechnic in the 1960s. The first group show of 'The Unknown' was held at IENS Building (now INS Building ) at Rafi Marg, New Delhi in 1962.

First exhibition Arpita Singh's first exhibition was held at Kunika Chemould Gallery, organised by Roshan Alkazi, New Delhi in 1972. Inspired by a meeting in 1979 with Nancy Spero, May Stevens and Ana Mendieta at the AIR Gallery in New York (the first all-female artists’ cooperative gallery in the US), Malani had planned to organise an exhibition entirely of works by women artists, which failed to materialise due to a lack of interest and support.

Her works have been exhibited at ‘Modern and Contemporary Indian Art’ at Vadehra Art Gallery, New Delhi, 2006; 'Progressive to Altermodern: 62 Years of Indian Modern Art' at Grosvenor Gallery, London, 2009; 'Kalpana: Figurative Art in India' presented by the Indian Council for Cultural Relations (ICCR) at Aicon Gallery, London, 2009; 'The Root of Everything' at Gallery Mementos, Bangalore, 2009. the 2021 exhibition Women in Abstraction at the Centre Pompidou and the Guggenheim Bilbao, the 2022 exhibition Women Painting Women at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, the 2024 exhibition The Imaginary Institution of India at The Barbican Centre, and the 2025 exhibition Remembering at the Serpentine Galleries.

Style Arpita Singh's early paintings were mainly water colors on paper. She would paint usually in black and white ink.

By the 80s, she started to paint Bengali folk paintings with women as the focus. She would use vibrant colors in a rather restrained way and her palette is usually dominated by pinks and blues. Arpita would draw daily use objects like trees, flowers, flower vases, animals, teapots, pillows, festoons and flags, and show women surrounded by them. Child Bride with Swan (1985) and Girl Smoking Cigarette (1985) are examples of her protagonists, leading uncomplicated lives and deaths. Those include:

2014 - Fellowship of Lalit Kala Akademi 2011 - Padma Bhushan 1998-1999: Kalidas Samman, Bhopal 1991 - Parishad Samman, Sahitya Kala Parishad, New Delhi

Publications 2018: Arpita Singh: Tying down time, Talwar Gallery