Raja Ravi Varma

•  Raja Ravi Varma is regarded as the father of modern Indian art for systematically blending European realism with Indian cultural and mythological themes. 
•  His painting Yashoda and Krishna recently sold for ₹167.20 crore, becoming the highest-valued Indian artwork ever auctioned. 
Early life and training
•  He was born in 1848 in Kilimanoor into a family closely associated with the Travancore royal household.
•  He produced more than 7,000 paintings, making him one of the most prolific Indian artists of the 19th century. 
•  He gained prominence as a court painter, receiving commissions from princely states such as Baroda, Mysore, and Udaipur. 
•  He was commissioned to paint 14 Puranic paintings for the Durbar Hall of the new Lakshmi Vilas Palace at Baroda.
•  He painted large-scale mythological works for palace spaces, especially drawing from the Mahabharata and Ramayana. 
•  His works established standardized visual representations of deities like Lakshmi and Saraswati that continue in popular culture. 
•  He won international recognition, including awards at exhibitions in Vienna (1873) and the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago (1893).

Democratisation of Art 
•  He established a lithographic printing press in Bombay in 1894 to mass-produce his paintings as oleographs. 
•  This innovation allowed affordable reproduction of art, breaking the monopoly of elite patronage and making art accessible to the general public. 
•  His prints circulated widely across households, temples, and public spaces, embedding his style into everyday Indian visual culture.
•  Experts highlight that his work marked a transition from traditional court art to modern mass visual culture in India. 
•  His fusion of Western realism with Indian themes created a new artistic vocabulary during the colonial period. 
•  His printing model laid the foundation for later visual media traditions, including calendar art and illustrated publications like Amar Chitra Katha.