New Delhi, Nov 9 (PTI) Modernist artist Arpita Singh, widely known for her detailed figurative works reflective of societal traumas such as war and communalism, died from age-related ailments at a hospital here on Monday. She was 89.
Her husband, artist Paramjit Singh, said she was working almost till the last. "She had heart and lung related issues for some years now. However, she was actively working. Her health dipped in the last three days and she was admitted to Fortis hospital," Paramjit Singh told PTI.
Their only daughter Anjum, also an artist, died in 2020 from cancer.
The last rites of Arpita Singh, whose 16-panel “Wish Dream” became the most-valued work by an Indian woman artist when it sold for Rs 9.6 crore at a Saffronart online auction in 2010, were held at the Lodhi Road crematorium in the afternoon.
Born in West Bengal in 1937, Singh moved to Delhi with her family in 1946, just a year before Independence and Partition. She graduated from the School of Art at Delhi Polytechnic in 1959 with a Diploma in Fine Arts.
The six-decade career was marked by works that brought together figuration, abstraction and elements heavily drawn from Bengali folk traditions and Indian stories, creating an oeuvre that had an inimitable style of narrative storytelling.
Singh's extensive repertoire generally centred around a female figure, reflecting social upheaval and humanitarian crises of her times.
“Threat”, a 1991 oil on canvas, reflected the rise of communalism within India and the Gulf war of the year. The painting depicts three women cowering on one side of the canvas, with prone figures at the bottom of it; menacing men in army uniforms appear threateningly on the other.
Her “Devi Pistol Wali” (1990) invokes the imagery of Mahishasur Mardini, a form of Goddess Durga. The five-armed woman points a gun at another man who holds a sword and a shield. The painting reimagined traditional imagery in a way to bring together domestic symbols and the threat of violence.
Her strongest statement about military aggression and armed conflicts was perhaps made through “My Lily Pond” (2009) that depicted armed soldiers attacking people with bloodied torsos and an expression of abject horror. Sold for Rs 9 crore at a Pundole’s auction, the triptych reads “do not turn this into Guantanamo Bay” on the left corners while on the left, three yellow landmasses are denoted as the ill-famed US prison in Cuba.
The text, “do not turn this into Guantanamo Bay”, could have been an allusion to writer Hari Kunzru’s words at a literary festival who warned to “not to turn Kashmir into Guantanamo”.
One of Singh's most expensive paintings was “Objects With and Without Shadows”, a 1989 oil on canvas that sold for Rs 16.50 crore at a Pundole’s auction in 2025.
Talwar Gallery, New York, opened her latest show in September, titled “Unfolding”, that features her new paintings, watercolours and drawings.
The latest body of work reflects her continuing engagement with personal memory and lived experiences in the broader context of social upheaval, gender, violence and political change.
Singh's work has been exhibited at major institutional exhibitions in India and internationally, including “Remembering” at Serpentine Galleries, London, in 2025 and “Submergence: In the Midst of Here and There”, a retrospective, in 2019 at The Kiran Nadar Museum of Art (KNMA) New Delhi.
The show in London, her first solo exhibition outside India, featured old and new works including her large-scale oil paintings as well as her more intimate watercolours and ink drawings.
It also included the themes of motherhood, the aging female form, feminine sensuality, vulnerability, and violence, “demonstrating the impact of relationships and external events on the emotional and psychological landscape of the artist”, according tot he gallery.
Singh received the Padma Bhushan in 2011 and the Lalit Kala Akademi Fellowship in 2014 for her contribution to the world of art.
The art fraternity mourned her death.
Art curator Uma Nair called Singh the "high priestess of contemporary Indian art" and the "female M F Husain of the female arc". She noted that the beauty of her work was in the way she "wove violence and chaos and patriarchal mores all so softly".
"The power of the narrative was her elixir, where the world becomes a quilt of characters who play their own parts...," Nair wrote.
Ashok Vajpeyi, poet and managing trustee of Raza Foundation, wrote in a social media post that Singh's "deeply agonised vision ranged from an almost epic apprehension of contemporary violence to the lyrical celebration of life in its numerous hues and shades.
"Her art survives her life and would now create a new posthumous life of itself. The loss of Arpita Singh is a huge loss for the whole world of Indian Culture," Vajpeyi added.
Artist Anju Dodiya remembered her as “brave and funny, stoic and silly”, while Roshini Vadehra of Vadehra Art Gallery said “we lost one of the greatest of our times”.
“An incredible artist, loved by all, not only for her art but for her ability to see humour, colour and magic in the littlest of things. You will be missed beyond words, Arpita Singh. With all my love and gratitude for many giggles through the years,” Vadehra said.
Artist Abhimanue Govindan shared the memory of meeting her at an exhibition preview where Singh shared an anecdote about a young woman art historian who approached her for a survey on women artists and the challenges they faced.
“Arpita ji told her that, as a woman artist, she was quite happy, because her painter husband was always there to support her in every possible way - even getting her art materials and stretching canvases for her!
“The young researcher, apparently expecting a different kind of response, was left somewhat surprised. Arpita ji narrated the incident with her characteristic innocence and a gentle sense of humour, laughing as she recalled it,” Govindan posted on Instagram.
He added that she was a senior artist “who carried no pretensions or airs about themselves. Her warmth and unassuming nature made me feel very comfortable in her company”.
(This story has not been edited by THE WEEK and is auto-generated from PTI)