Ira Chaudhuri (b 1927) is a pioneering Indian studio potter and ceramic artist whose career helped shape the language of contemporary glazed pottery in India. She was educated at Santiniketan’s Kala Bhavan, and grew up in an atmosphere shaped by Tagore’s cultural ideals and Gandhian thought – influences that stayed close to her sensibility throughout her life.
After meeting sculptor Sankho Chaudhuri at Santiniketan, she moved with him to Baroda in 1951, where she immersed herself in pottery and experimentation. Working at the Faculty of Fine Arts, she explored oxides, glazes, earthenware, and firing temperatures with remarkable independence, also building her practice through formal teaching.
Chaudhuri’s work is known for its focus on functionality, elegant form, and the distinctive use of sgraffito, a technique she made central to her visual language. Over the decades, she developed a body of ceramics that earned recognition in India and abroad through exhibitions, teaching, and a long studio practice.
In later years, she continued to reinvent her art, moving from clay to drawing and etching when age made pottery more difficult, without losing the symmetry and precision that define her work. Based in Delhi, Ira Chaudhuri remains an important figure in Indian modern art and ceramics, admired for both her technical daring and her enduring creative energy.