Lalu Prasad Shaw was born in 1937, Bengal and received a Diploma in painting from the Government College of Arts and Crafts, Kolkata, in 1959. Shaw is a self-trained artist who emerged as one of the leading figures among Indian graphic artists during the resurgence of printmaking in the late sixties. In the early 1970s he joined Kala Bhavana as a faculty member.
Lalu Prasad Shaw works mainly in gouache or tempera. His style is unique and modern in its adaptation of academic and traditional Indian formats. Influenced by the pre-independence Company School of art, the traditional Kalighat Pat and the Ajanta cave paintings, his works are simple and graceful, having a very still, well-composed and smooth exterior. This senior artist draws his inspiration primarily from nature and the great Bengali middle class surroundings. Shaw’s paintings are charged with nostalgia and are object-specific. His brooding characters – men, women, and children – seem frozen into a kind of quiescent gesture; they’re formal and speechless, but still expressive. Involved with lithography and intaglio, he is also highly acclaimed for his work as a printmaker.
Shaw has exhibited extensively in India and abroad. His work is a part of the permanent collections of various museums and institutions.
Lalu Prasad Shaw lives and works in Kolkata