Leela Mukherjee

Leela Mukherjee, née Mansukhani, was born in Hyderabad, Sindh in 1916.^[1] She attended the Theosophical Girls' School in Benares, and completed a science degree at Bombay University.^[1] She then studied art at Kala Bhavan, Santiniketan.^[1] Her teachers included Ramkinkar Baij and Nandalal Bose.^[1] In 1944 she married a fellow student, Benode Behari Mukherjee.^[1][3]

Mukherjee worked with her husband and the artist Kripal Singh on a mural at Hindi Bhavan, Santiniketan, in 1947.^[4]

In 1948 she visited Nepal and learnt wood carving.^[1] The critic Pran Nath Mago wrote of her wooden sculpture, "Leela Mukerjee has chiselled in her woodwood sculptures aboriginal human forms with an intense feeling".^[5] Later in her working life she started casting in bronze.^[6]

From 1954 to 1974 she worked at Welham Girls' School as head of the art department. Two murals by her still exist at the school.^[1] She was also head of department at Welham Boys' School.^[7]

From 1975, Mukherjee was part of the Lalit Kala Akademi, where she developed her work through printmaking.^[1] She also exhibited with the All India Fine Arts and Crafts Society.^[1]

Her influences have been described as "Mexican and folk".^[8]

Her exhibitions included:

• 1951, at Silpi Chakra in Delhi.^[9]
• 1958, a one-woman show of wood-carvings in Delhi.^[10]
• 1959, All-India Sculpture Exhibition.^{[11][better source needed]}
• 1997, Major Trends in Indian Art.^{[11][better source needed]}

Leela and Benode Behari Mukherjee have been described as living in an "enviable milieu of cultural practitioners".^[12]

They had one child, a daughter, the artist Mrinalini Mukherjee, born 1949.^[13]