Arpita Singh

Who is Arpita Singh?

Arpita Singh is an Indian artist. She was born in West Bengal, India. Currently she lives in Nizamuddin East, New Delhi. She is married to fellow painter Paramjit Singh and they have a daughter, the artist Anjum Singh.

Singh attended the School of Art, Delhi Polytechnic in New Delhi from 1954 to 1959. After she graduated she worked for the Indian Government's Cottage Industries Restoration Program. While she worked in the program she met traditional artists and weavers in India. This is said to have impacted her artwork. In the 1970s her paintings were mainly black and white abstracts.

But in the 1980s she started to paint Bengali folk paintings. In these paintings often have women as the subjects. Many of her paintings of women show them doing daily work and simple routines in their lives. Originally when she started painting she was doing watercolors on paper which connected her painting to Indian tradition. But in the 1990s Singh started paint oil on canvas which was considered a dramatic shift. In some of her paintings of women the woman is portrayed nude. This is said to show the woman's vulnerability rather than showing her in a sexual sense.