Lourembam Bino Devi
The senior-most master of leeba, Manipur's appliqué craft, who has trained women for over five decades, honoured with the Padma Shri in 2022.
Lourembam Bino Devi is the senior-most practitioner of leeba, the traditional appliqué art of Manipur, and has worked to revive it for more than 50 years. She was named for the Padma Shri in 2022 in the field of art, from Manipur [1].
Taught by her mother-in-law
Bino Devi was born on 1 March 1944 and married at 17 into a family at Keishamthong [2]. Her mother-in-law, L. Ibetombi Devi, the first recipient of a National Award for handicrafts, trained her in the craft, and she has practised it ever since [2].
Passing it on
She has run leeba training at the Manipur State Museum with the Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts in 1995, for Manipur’s art and culture department in 2004, and for women prison inmates with the Manipur State Commission for Women in 2016 [2]. She has also led workshops under the guru-shishya scheme and further training programmes at the Heritage Foundation of Mankind in 2017, the national museum of mankind in Bhopal in 2019 and with Manipur’s handloom and handicrafts corporation in 2022 [2]. Three of her students have won state awards [2].
Her honours include the state award for master craftspeople and the Silpa Bhushan of the Manipur State Kala Akademi [2].
Sources
- [1] Padma Awards 2022: list of awardees — Ministry of Home Affairs, Government of India. Accessed 24 October 2026.
- [2] Padma Awards 2022: citation for Lourembam Bino Devi — Padma Awards, Government of India. Accessed 24 October 2026.
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