About Anjolie Ela Menon

Born in 1940 in West Bengal, Menon studied at the Sir J.J. Institute of Applied Art at Mumbai and later earned a degree in English Literature from Delhi University. Menon worked and studied in Paris at the Ecole des Beaux Arts in 1961-62 on a French Government scholarship. Menon's early canvases exhibited the varied influences of Van Gogh, the Expressionists, Modigliani, Amrita Sher-Gil, and M. F. Husain. Menon utilized the characteristics of early Christian art – including the frontal perspective, the averted head, and the slight body elongation – but took the female nude as a frequent subject.

The result is a dynamic relationship of the erotic and the melancholy. Menon has developed this iconography of distance and loss in her later works through her thematic depiction of black crows, empty chairs, windows, and hidden figures. She invariably works with the Oil on Masonite medium. She is also a well-known muralist and has represented India at the Sao Paulo Biennale Brazil. In addition to paintings in private and corporate collections, her works have been acquired by museums in India and abroad. She has received numerous prestigious awards including Padma Shri by the Government of India, 2000. Before returning home, she travelled extensively in Europe and West Asia studying Romanesque and Byzantine art. Since then she has lived and worked in India, England, U.S.A., Germany and the erstwhile USSR. She lives and works in Delhi.