INTRODUCTION

Born in Gujarat in 1925 Tyeb Mehta spent an initial period working as a film editor in a cinema laboratory. His interest in painting however took him to the Sir J.J. School of Art from where he received his diploma in 1952. A close friend of the Progressive Artists Group with considerable stylistic affiliation he left for London where he lived and worked between 1959 and 1964. He visited the U. S. on a Rockefeller Fellowship in 1968. His film Koodal, a powerful depiction of the ordinary man's dilemma won the Film fare Critic's Award in 1970. As an Artist in Residence in Santiniketan between 1984-85 he returned to Mumbai with significant changes in his work.