The history of Indian modernism has often focused on the centres of Bombay and Delhi, but the city of Baroda emerged in the 1950s as an equally dynamic site of experimentation. It was here that Ratan Parimoo, under the mentorship of Prof. N.S. Bendre, forged an artistic language that moved beyond academic realism into radical new directions. This exhibition highlights two vital phases of his artistic journey: his early line-based works of the late 1950s and 60s, inspired by Jain and Egyptian miniatures, and his extraordinary abstract canvases produced between 1958 and 1972. Together, these works illuminate the foundations of a lifelong search for purity of form and freedom from convention.

Parimoo’s abstract paintings, created at a time when very few Indian artists were working outside figuration, represent one of the earliest and boldest engagements with non-representational art in post-independence India. His canvases—gestural, emotive, and architectonic—resist decorative impulses and symbolism, instead offering tonal depth and symphonic harmonies of colour. His experiments with encaustic techniques and his early Cubistic explorations mark him as a pioneer of abstraction in Baroda, decades before such work received recognition in Indian art history. Although encounters with modernist masters like Rothko and Pollock during his time in England and the United States broadened his vision, Parimoo’s works remained uniquely his own, deeply rooted in Indian artistic traditions and cultural identity.