Manu Parekh

Born in 1939 and brought up in a Gujarati household in Ahmedabad, Manu Parekh has completed his diploma in drawing and painting from Sir J.J. School of Art.
Having had a diverse experience in terms of working, in his early career Parekh was involved with theatre as a stage designer and an actor bringing in diverse perspectives to his art. His association with the Handicraft and Handloom Export Corporation of India as a design consultant gave an opportunity for him to interact and work with craftspeople.

Moving to Calcutta drew him more towards the masters of Rabindranath Tagore and Ramkinkar Baij, whose works, he understood at a perceptual level which in turn made him delve deeper into his own thoughts and art practice. Banaras, the holy city encompasses the drama in life and plays a source of everlasting inspiration for the artist with it’s many layered and thickly textured reality and crowded landscapes. Deeply impressed by it’s architecture, structure of human activity as well as constantly changing skies, it reflected in his works on the Ghats of Banaras, one of his notable series.

Celebrating the dynamic relationship between man and nature, the artist captures the energy through his vivid colors and bold brushwork. He speaks a vernacular language and a culture visible in his paintings, strongly influenced by his surroundings. The intriguing energy of the organic form and the inherent sexuality within these forms engages Parekh with paintings that invoke an energy in the viewers to observe their immediate surroundings closely. Definite color schemes talking about the possibilities of the place, it’s landscapes and time period, he claims to have started depicting contradictions.

Manu Parekh also encouraged his wife and creative partner Madhvi to explore painting and she has become an established artist with her own unique style. In 2022, as part of a collaboration between House of Dior (France) and the Chanakya School of Craft (India), the husband-wife duo were invited to create artworks for the Paris Haute Couture Week. These artworks were then converted into large sized embroidered pieces and served as a backdrop for the fashion walk.

Parekh held his first solo exhibition of graphics and paintings in Ahmedabad in 1968, and has not looked back since. His most recent solo shows have included ‘Banaras – Eternity Watches Time’ presented by Saffronart and Berkeley Square Gallery, London, at Jehangir Art Gallery, Mumbai, in 2007; 'Banaras' at Vadehra Art Gallery, New Delhi, in 2004; 'Portraits of Flower and Landscapes of River' at Jehangir Art Gallery and Tao Art Gallery, Mumbai, in 2003; 'Ritual Oblations' at Rabindra Bhavan, New Delhi, Sakshi Gallery, Bangalore, and Sakshi Gallery and Jehangir Art Gallery, Mumbai, in 1999; and 'Small Drawings' at Sophia Duchesne Art Gallery, Mumbai, in 1991. Parekh has also had solo shows at BosePacia Modern in New York and at ARKS Gallery in London. Parekh was awarded the President of India's Silver Plaque and All India Fine Arts and Crafts Society Award, New Delhi, in 1972; the National Award from the Lalit Kala Akademi, New Delhi, in 1982; and the Padma Shree from the Government of India in 1992.

The artist lives and works in New Delhi.