B. Prabha was born in the village of Bela, near Nagpur in Maharashtra in 1933 and passed away in 2001. She few up in a close-knit middle-class family and studied at the Nagpur School of Art and went on pursue a Diploma in Painting and Mural Painting from the Sir J.J. School of Art, Mumbai.
Prabha mostly worked with oils on canvas although this modern painter did explore several media, styles and subjects before finally settling with oils as her preferred medium. Following her phase of experimentation, Prabha developed an elegant, formal style that remains her trademark. Her paintings cover a wide range of subjects, from landscapes to social issues like droughts, hunger and homelessness. A significant component of Prabha’s body of work is the artist’s self-conscious attempt to highlight the plight of women in her country, in this process she has almost immortalised the fisherwomen of Mumbai. The way she represented these rustic women in their characteristic hairstyles and bright saris became the distinctive feature of her painting style.
Prabha’s signature style fully evolved after her marriage to fellow artist B. Vithal in 1956, when she moved from modern abstract forms to a more decorative figuration. She held her first joint exhibition with her husband the same year. It is interesting to note that B. Prabha was a practicing female artist in an age where women were unapologetically oppressed, and it is no surprise therefore that Prabha used her own position as an artist to make strong comments on the same. While her work today might seem like a simple documentation of the figures of rural women, it must be taken into account that a few decades ago these might have been odes to the spirit and the plight of these women.
Prabha was part of Bombay State Art Exhibition in 1958 where she was awarded the first prize. In her professional career she participated in various group and solo shows, among which were her solo exhibition ‘Shradhanjali’ dedicated to her late husband B. Vithal held in Mumbai in 1993 and a group exhibition ‘Contemporary Indian Painters’ held at Jehangir Art Gallery in Mumbai in 1996.
Posthumously, her work has been exhibited in many shows and regularly included in various art auctions.
