Himmat Shah was born in Lothal, Gujarat in 1933 and grew up in surrounded by the remnants of a prominent port city of Indus Valley Civilisation. Himmat Shah initially trained to become a drawing teacher before enrolling at the Faculty of Fine Arts at M.S. University Baroda to study painting from 1956-1960. He then received a French Government scholarship on recommendation and went on to study etching at Atelier 17 under Krishna Reddy in Paris in 1967.
Himmat Shah was a member of Group 1890, a short-lived artists' collective founded by J. Swaminathan. Shah has widely experimented across forms and mediums, making burnt paper collages, architectural murals, drawings and sculptures, though he sees himself as primarily a sculptor. His self-designed tools and innovative techniques give his preferred medium – terracotta – a contemporary edge. Shah uses a number of tools, brushes, instruments and hand tools to carve, shape and mould his works. From 1967 onwards, he started working on relief work and sculpture, and he is widely recognised for his abstracted terracotta and bronze sculptures. His best known work remains the heads in terracotta and bronze.
Himmat Shah has participated in several solo and group shows in India and abroad. In 2003, he was conferred with the Kalidasa Samman by the Government of Madhya Pradesh. Shah has also received the Sahitya Kala Parishad Award, New Delhi, in 1988.
The artist lives and works in Jaipur.