One of India’s important post-modernist painters, Sunil Das rose to prominence with his drawing of horses. “I must have done 7000 horses between 1950 to 60,” he says. “In 1962, I went to Spain, where I was fascinated by the bull fights.” A French art scholarship with the Ecole Nationale Superieure des Beaux-Arts took him to Europe. It was in the course of his travels that he chanced to spend a few months in Spain, where he developed his passion for horses and bulls.

Sunil Das’s paintings not only express the physical attributes of his subjects but also their associative ones. Hardly ever painting in loud or warm colors, Sunil Das uses soft brown, mauve and white in the background to bring out the drama of life. He blends talent with hard work. He works by suggestion and minimalism. Quite absurd in form, his paintings are morbidly fascinating. “I delve a lot on man’s inhumanity to man,” he says.