Leela Mukherjee

Career

Mukherjee worked with her husband and the artist Kripal Singh on a mural at Hindi Bhavan, Santiniketan, in 1947.

In 1948 she visited Nepal and learnt wood carving. Later in her working life she started casting in bronze.

From 1954 to 1974 she worked at Welham Girls' School as head of the art department. Two murals by her still exist at the school.

From 1975, Mukherjee was part of the Lalit Kala Akademi, where she developed her work through printmaking.

Her exhibitions included:

1951, at Silpi Chakra in Delhi. 1958, a one-woman show of wood-carvings in Delhi. 1959, All-India Sculpture Exhibition. 1997, Major Trends in Indian Art.

They had one child, a daughter, the artist Mrinalini Mukherjee, born 1949.

Legacy

Mukerjee's art had an influence on the work of her daughter, Mrinalini Mukherjee. Mrinalini spoke of her mother's illness and death changing her creative practice.

Pritika Chowdhry has described her as one of the "women artists who rose to national and international prominence in early and middle modernism".

Works by Leela Mukherjee are in the collection of the National Gallery of Modern Art in New Delhi.