Ratan Parimoo

Ratan Parimoo is both a painter and one of India’s leading art historians. He is credited with pioneering a new way of studying Indian art. In 2025 he was named for the Padma Shri in the field of art, from Gujarat ^[1].

Baroda and London

Parimoo was born on 16 June 1936 in Srinagar ^[2]. He studied painting at the Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda and the history of art at the University of London ^[2]. In 1972 he earned what the citation describes as the first PhD in art history from an Indian art institution ^[2].

He headed Baroda’s department of art history and aesthetics from 1966 to 1991 and was dean of its faculty of fine arts ^[2].

A new art history

Parimoo combined European methods of interpretation with Indian ideas of rasa and alamkara to read Indian art ^[2]. He wrote on modern Indian art when few scholars did, and on subjects from Ajanta and Ellora to Mughal, Rajasthani and Pahari painting ^[2]. His book The Art of Three Tagores (2010) is a standard reference ^[2].

As a painter, he co-founded the first Baroda Group of Artists in 1956 and worked in abstraction and surrealism ^[2]. From 2007 to 2019 he reorganised the Lalbhai Dalpatbhai Museum and the N.C. Mehta collection in Ahmedabad ^[2].