ABOUT THE FOUNDER

JAYA - A Short Introduction
Born on 31 December 1918 in a well to do family in Chennai, with her father a judge and her mother an educationist and social worker, Jaya was sent to Santiniketan at the early age of seventeen. The atmosphere was very different from her Victorian home but Jaya was entranced by all that Santiniketan had to offer. It was at Kala Bhavan that she spent her formative years gaining her Diploma in Art in 1945. Between the years 1947 to early 1950 she was awarded a Fellowship to study art in China . She joined Oberlin College , USA , from where she obtained a Masters degree in Fine Arts. She had a short spell as teacher at Maharani Gayatri Devi School at Jaipur after which she joined the Delhi Polytechnic, later renamed College of Art .

A frequent visitor to art exhibitions, the editor of Hindustan Times asked her to review such events. This association was to continue for many years. She was appointed Editor, Lalit Kala Contemporary in 1964 and continued in this capacity until her retirement in 1976.

She was drawn to the art of the Company Period and in order to attain better understanding she began to collect drawings, portraits and folios of manuscripts executed in the Company style. These were not very expensive at the time. As the areas of her research interests diversified her collections of study specimens also kept pace and it was in this way that she built up her valuable collection. Jaya was introduced to graphics through the wood cut prints of Bengal and this trail took her to many other parts of the sub-continent. She had a keen eye and some of the prints she collected were printed at Raja Ravi Varma Press at Lonavala and Ghatkopar near Mumbai and Hem Chandra Bhargava Press, Delhi . Active until her penultimate moments and mortally stricken with cancer, she succumbed on 3rd September 1984.