Bhupen Khakhar was a seminal Indian painter known for his intimate scenes of figures amidst richly colored landscapes. Calling to mind both Indian miniatures and Henri Rousseau, Khakhar’s motifs included a watch repairman’s shop and scenes from Aesop’s Fables. “Human beings in their local environment, climate, provincial society: this should be the ultimate goal of the artist,” he once said. Born on March 10, 1934 in Bombay, India, he went on to attend the University of Bombay where he received a BA in economics. Khakhar began painting in his free time while working as an accountant in the city of Baroda. The artist’s homosexuality was prominent feature in much of his work, and was often tinged with the melancholy of living in a country in which that lifestyle was condemned. Khakar was notably portrayed as an accountant in Salman Rushdie’s novel The Moor’s Last Sigh (1995), he painted a portrait of Rushdie which titled The Moor the same year. The artist died on August 8, 2003 in Baroda, India. Today, his works are held in the collections of the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, The Museum of Modern Art in New York, and the National Gallery of Modern Art in New Delhi, among others.