Nilima Sheikh (b. 1945) is one of India’s most distinguished contemporary painters and a key figure of the Baroda School. Born in New Delhi, she studied history at Delhi University before training in painting at the Faculty of Fine Arts, M. S. University, Baroda, where she developed a practice rooted in narrative, research, and a deep engagement with Indian pictorial traditions.
Sheikh’s work is known for its layered, contemplative surfaces and its powerful engagement with themes of displacement, loss, violence, memory, and femininity. Working in tempera on handmade paper, canvas, scrolls, screens, installations, and theatre-related formats, she draws on miniature painting, Pichwai, manuscript traditions, and visual sources from South Asia, Persia, Central Asia, and Europe.
A central concern in her practice is the representation of women and the historical conditions that shape lived experience. Her paintings often weave together visual and textual elements, folklore, poetry, and historical reference, creating complex narratives that move between the personal and the political, the intimate and the collective.
Since the 1980s, Sheikh has also been committed to researching and sustaining traditional art forms, while reimagining them in a contemporary idiom. Major presentations of her work have included Each Night Put Kashmir in Your Dreams at the Art Institute of Chicago and her participation in documenta 14, alongside extensive exhibitions in India and abroad.
Nilima Sheikh’s art stands out for its delicate intensity, historical depth, and commitment to feminist realities, making her one of the most important voices in modern and contemporary Indian art.