The Painter A Life of Ravi Varma

He was the most famous Indian artist of his age: the darling of the royal courts; an artist whose depiction of gods and goddesses as men and women put a human face to divinities; and the entrepreneur who realized his dream of bringing art to the masses. For the first time comes a grippingly told story of Raja Ravi Varma (1848-1906), from his early days with the royal family of Travancore in Kerala, to the years he spent teaching himself to paint and blend European art's sensuality with Indian subjects, through to his sojourns into the royal courts of India as a celebrity portraitist, and his move to Mumbai where he started a printing press that left him bankrupt. Beautifully told, immaculately researched and full of colour, this is the first popular biography of one of India's greatest artists.