Portrait of An Artist
Mapin Publishing
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Portrait of An Artist
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"This is Chawla’s endeavour to posit the value of art in times when its transactional aspects often make bigger news and the question of what constitutes a work of art offers increasingly amorphous answers." —Sohini Dey, Open Magazine
“An artist in his studio is an image of solemn symmetry. The studio is a sacred space where stillness, solitude and movement exist in harmony. It is also a forbidding ascetic realm where creation is a struggle and rapture, a private conversation between the mind and the canvas,” says Rohit Chawla. This publication presents some of India’s iconic artists at work and play, photographed by Rohit Chawla for the book and an exhibition in waiting. A part of Chawla’s larger repertoire of creative masters from across the world, these quiet portraits capture the intimacy between photography and the art of painting and sculpture. Here, the artist is a work of art himself.
Accompanying Chawla into this private realm is yet another interloper: the author, Kishore Singh, who has known and interacted with these artists over the years as a curator and art historian. Singh unravels the unique relationship the artists have with their studio and work. Together, through the photographs and interviews, situating the artists in their studios, they capture a fleeting moment of truth that forms the subject of this book. For an artist’s studio is both a place of refuge away from the world and the world itself. It is here they overcome their fears and vulnerabilities and turn the inward gaze on what is precious to themselves—slowly, excitingly bringing art to life.
Rohit Chawla is an artist and thought leader whose lens has long captured the pulse of contemporary India. Celebrated as one of the country’s foremost photographers, his portfolio spans a rich tapestry of solo exhibitions and has earned international acclaim, including India’s first ever Industry Craft Gold Lion at Cannes in 2023, followed by Grand Prix honours at Spikes Asia and the Abbies in 2024. His most recent work and initiative at the recent Mahakumbh was awarded a Silver Lion at Cannes in July 2025. Chawla has worked previously in advertising for nearly two decades, and today he runs his own design and film production company. He recently joined NDTV as Creative Director.Kishore Singh is an author, curator, editor and columnist with several art exhibitions and accompanying books to his credit. He works as an independent arts consultant.
Published by: Kiran Nadar Museum of Art, New Delhi and Mapin Publishing.
Accompanying Chawla into this private realm is yet another interloper: the author, Kishore Singh, who has known and interacted with these artists over the years as a curator and art historian. Singh unravels the unique relationship the artists have with their studio and work. Together, through the photographs and interviews, situating the artists in their studios, they capture a fleeting moment of truth that forms the subject of this book. For an artist’s studio is both a place of refuge away from the world and the world itself. It is here they overcome their fears and vulnerabilities and turn the inward gaze on what is precious to themselves—slowly, excitingly bringing art to life.
Rohit Chawla is an artist and thought leader whose lens has long captured the pulse of contemporary India. Celebrated as one of the country’s foremost photographers, his portfolio spans a rich tapestry of solo exhibitions and has earned international acclaim, including India’s first ever Industry Craft Gold Lion at Cannes in 2023, followed by Grand Prix honours at Spikes Asia and the Abbies in 2024. His most recent work and initiative at the recent Mahakumbh was awarded a Silver Lion at Cannes in July 2025. Chawla has worked previously in advertising for nearly two decades, and today he runs his own design and film production company. He recently joined NDTV as Creative Director.Kishore Singh is an author, curator, editor and columnist with several art exhibitions and accompanying books to his credit. He works as an independent arts consultant.
Published by: Kiran Nadar Museum of Art, New Delhi and Mapin Publishing.
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Foreword by Kiran Nadar
Artist, Alone by Kishore Singh
The Quiet Portrait by Rohit Chawla
Prelude - Raghu Rai
Akbar Padamsee
Amit Ambalal
Amrita Sher-Gil
Anish Kapoor
Anjolie Ela Menon
Anju Dodiya
Anupam Sud
Arpana Caur
Arpita Singh
Atul Dodiya
Bharti Kher
Bikash Bhattacharjee
Bose Krishnamachari
Bhupen Khakhar
F.N. Souza
Ganesh Haloi
Gigi Scaria
Gogi Saroj Pal
G.R. Iranna
Gulammohammed Sheikh
Himmat Shah
Jagannath Panda
Jayasri Burman
Jayashree Chakravarty
Jehangir Sabavala
Jogen Chowdhury
Jyoti Bhatt
Krishen Khanna
K. Laxma Goud
K.G. Subramanyan
K.S. Radhakrishnan Kulpreet Singh
Kulpreet Singh
M.F. Husain
Madhvi Parekh
Manjit Bawa
Manjunath Kamath
Manu Parekh
Mithu Sen
Navjot Altaf
Nilima Sheikh
Olivia Fraser
Paramjit Singh
Paresh Maity
Ramachandran, A.
Ram Kumar
Rameshwar Broota
Ranbir Kaleka
Ravinder Reddy
Rekha Rodwittiya
Riyas Komu
S.H. Raza
Sakti Burman
Satish Gujral
Satish Gupta
Shilpa Gupta
Subodh Gupta
Subodh Kerkar
Sudarshan Shetty
Sudhir Patwardhan
Surendran Nair
T. Venkanna
Tyeb Mehta
Thota Vaikuntam
Veer Munshi
Vikrant Bhise
V.S. Gaitonde
Vivan Sundaram
Artist, Alone by Kishore Singh
The Quiet Portrait by Rohit Chawla
Prelude - Raghu Rai
Akbar Padamsee
Amit Ambalal
Amrita Sher-Gil
Anish Kapoor
Anjolie Ela Menon
Anju Dodiya
Anupam Sud
Arpana Caur
Arpita Singh
Atul Dodiya
Bharti Kher
Bikash Bhattacharjee
Bose Krishnamachari
Bhupen Khakhar
F.N. Souza
Ganesh Haloi
Gigi Scaria
Gogi Saroj Pal
G.R. Iranna
Gulammohammed Sheikh
Himmat Shah
Jagannath Panda
Jayasri Burman
Jayashree Chakravarty
Jehangir Sabavala
Jogen Chowdhury
Jyoti Bhatt
Krishen Khanna
K. Laxma Goud
K.G. Subramanyan
K.S. Radhakrishnan Kulpreet Singh
Kulpreet Singh
M.F. Husain
Madhvi Parekh
Manjit Bawa
Manjunath Kamath
Manu Parekh
Mithu Sen
Navjot Altaf
Nilima Sheikh
Olivia Fraser
Paramjit Singh
Paresh Maity
Ramachandran, A.
Ram Kumar
Rameshwar Broota
Ranbir Kaleka
Ravinder Reddy
Rekha Rodwittiya
Riyas Komu
S.H. Raza
Sakti Burman
Satish Gujral
Satish Gupta
Shilpa Gupta
Subodh Gupta
Subodh Kerkar
Sudarshan Shetty
Sudhir Patwardhan
Surendran Nair
T. Venkanna
Tyeb Mehta
Thota Vaikuntam
Veer Munshi
Vikrant Bhise
V.S. Gaitonde
Vivan Sundaram
| ISBN | 9789394501799 |
| Pages | 280 |
| Number of photographs | 130 |
| Size | 6.10 x 8.5″ (155 x 216 mm) |
| Date of Publishing | FEB. 2026 |
| Language(s) | English |
| Co-publisher(s) | Kiran Nadar Museum of Art | Mapin Publishing |
| Rights Available | World rights |
"Portrait of an Artist is a memorable tribute to the studio: the guarded space in which the artistic imagination struggles, experiments, and flourishes as it makes its way towards splendid public articulation. This beautiful book is a montage of photographs by Rohit Chawla and texts by Kishore Singh, occasionally interspersed with photographs drawn from the archive of modern Indian art. Chawla’s portraits of some of India’s leading and best loved artists are more than representations of personality; instead, they convey, with a magical power of poetic compression, the subtle interplay of withdrawn inwardness and dynamic expressiveness that undergirds all true and great art. These images invoke entire atmospheres of restlessness or repose: the lens reveals one artist’s focal intensity of contemplation and another’s surging will to bear witness; here, it touches on the melancholia underlying festivity, while there it traces a playfulness bubbling beneath a practice vigilant towards political and art-historical tremors. Singh’s texts trace the experiential trajectory of these artists, relaying the phases of their creative process and the particularity of their evolving relationship with their workspaces. Portrait of an Artist is an important and inspiring contribution to the documentation of the visual arts in India."
—Ranjit Hoskote, Poet, art critic and curator
"Rohit was to become the mirror of that change. He used the mobility of his body and graphic ad-brain to invent original frames. He gave us new eyes... This little magic-box-of-a-book, mastered by the text of Kishore Singh, uses his own art journey to enter the green rooms of 68 artists who remain without make-up even as they appear in full view like a new wave of stark, cutting-edge cinematic images." —Aman Nath, India Today
"Intimate, contemplative and brooding, Rohit Chawla’s Portrait of an Artist is the kind of tome that the Indian art world deserves but rarely gets." —Shaikh Ayaz, Architectural Digest
"Our appetite for knowing more about artists has been on the rise since the Renaissance age. Yet Rohit’s book is not a commentary. Nor does it argue the case of making celebrities of creative personalities. Instead, it searches for the elusive “true self." —Namrata Dewanjee, Elle Decor
"Portrait of an Artist is a fragment of Chawla’s larger global archive.The camera is a tool of trespass. For ace photographer Rohit Chawla, the lens serves as a key to the fourth wall, allowing him to enter the sacred space where the public persona drops and the creator becomes the created. This decade-long labour of love culminates in Portrait of an Artist, a book of evocative, colourless images featuring sixty of India’s most eminent figures." —Anindita Paul, Mumbai Mirror
"Seasoned photographer Rohit Chawla’s latest title, Portrait of an Artist, offers an unguarded look at modern Indian artists." —Shriram Iyengar, Mid-day
"His new book, Portrait of an Artist, brings that sensibility to a group of modern Indian artists, including Krishen Khanna, Anjolie Ela Menon and F.N. Souza. Shot over years of visits to their studios, the photographs place the artists within the rooms where they spend their days thinking and creating, surrounded by their materials, tools and unfinished work close at hand." —CondeNast Traveller
—Ranjit Hoskote, Poet, art critic and curator
"Rohit was to become the mirror of that change. He used the mobility of his body and graphic ad-brain to invent original frames. He gave us new eyes... This little magic-box-of-a-book, mastered by the text of Kishore Singh, uses his own art journey to enter the green rooms of 68 artists who remain without make-up even as they appear in full view like a new wave of stark, cutting-edge cinematic images." —Aman Nath, India Today
"Intimate, contemplative and brooding, Rohit Chawla’s Portrait of an Artist is the kind of tome that the Indian art world deserves but rarely gets." —Shaikh Ayaz, Architectural Digest
"Our appetite for knowing more about artists has been on the rise since the Renaissance age. Yet Rohit’s book is not a commentary. Nor does it argue the case of making celebrities of creative personalities. Instead, it searches for the elusive “true self." —Namrata Dewanjee, Elle Decor
"Portrait of an Artist is a fragment of Chawla’s larger global archive.The camera is a tool of trespass. For ace photographer Rohit Chawla, the lens serves as a key to the fourth wall, allowing him to enter the sacred space where the public persona drops and the creator becomes the created. This decade-long labour of love culminates in Portrait of an Artist, a book of evocative, colourless images featuring sixty of India’s most eminent figures." —Anindita Paul, Mumbai Mirror
"Seasoned photographer Rohit Chawla’s latest title, Portrait of an Artist, offers an unguarded look at modern Indian artists." —Shriram Iyengar, Mid-day
"His new book, Portrait of an Artist, brings that sensibility to a group of modern Indian artists, including Krishen Khanna, Anjolie Ela Menon and F.N. Souza. Shot over years of visits to their studios, the photographs place the artists within the rooms where they spend their days thinking and creating, surrounded by their materials, tools and unfinished work close at hand." —CondeNast Traveller