Sailoz Mukherjea is regarded as one of India's earliest modern painters, and was featured, in 1979, on a list of Nine Indian Master Artists by the Archaeological Survey of India. Born in 1907 in Kolkata, Mukherjea received his diploma in Fine Arts from the Government College of Arts and Crafts, Calcutta, in 1932. He then taught at Delhi Polytechnic, and served as Art Director at the Imperial Tobacco Company before moving to Paris in 1937.

His stay in Europe metamorphosed his style of painting, but his compositions retained their as subject matter rural Indian people and scenes. The artist noted, “I owe my basic inspiration to Matisse’s odalisques. I accept whatever new forms of self-expression suit my orie...