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Raghav Kaneria is an abstract sculptor who works largely with industrial materials. He manipulates industrial metal and other found objects to echo his rural early life in works like the Bull series (1959) and Jumping Calf (1978).

Kaneria was born in Gujarat in 1936 to an agrarian family which had a lasting impact on his practice. In 1955, he joined the Faculty of Fine Arts, Maharaja Sayajirao University, Vadodara, where... Raghav Kaneria is an abstract sculptor who works largely with industrial materials. He manipulates industrial metal and other found objects to echo his rural early life in works like the Bull series (1959) and Jumping Calf (1978).

Kaneria was born in Gujarat in 1936 to an agrarian family which had a lasting impact on his practice. In 1955, he joined the Faculty of Fine Arts, Maharaja Sayajirao University, Vadodara, where he studied under Sankho Chaudhuri and K G Subramanyan . It was there that he gravitated towards working with scrap metal.

He was a member of the short-lived artist collective Group 1890, formed in 1962, which believed that, “Art is neither conformity to reality nor a flight from it, it is reality itself, a whole new world of experience, the threshold of passage into the world of freedom.” Kaneria was the sole sculptor to exhibit as part of the group at Rabindra Bhavan in 1963.

The artist studied at the Royal College of Art, where he worked with Bernard Meadows, from 1964 to 1967 on a Commonwealth scholarship. In 1967, he won the Sainsbury award. He taught at the Walthamstow School of Art, London in the 1960s before joining Faculty of Fine Arts, MSU as Reader. He went on to become Sculpture Department Chair until retirement in 1996.

Raghav Kaneria was part of the Commonwealth Art Exhibition in 1962 and Bernard Meadows at the Royal College of Art, 1960–1980 in 1980, in addition to having his works exhibited at Fukuoka Art Museum in 1979; Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge in 1980; Museum of Modern Art, Oxford in 1982; Jehangir Art Gallery, Mumbai in 1983; Pushkin Museum, Moscow in 1987; and the Delhi Art Gallery in 2015 and 2016. He has exhibited in countries across the globe like France, Switzerland, Japan, Russia, Germany, Belgium, United States, and Canada among others.

He has won many awards like the Lalit Kala Akademi National Awards in 1959 and 1963, a National Scholarship from 1960 to 1962, Bombay Art Society Awards (Gold Medal, Silver Medal and other prizes), All India Sculptor’s Association Silver Medal in 1960, All India Fine Arts and Crafts Society President of India’s Silver Plaque in 1960, Kala Ratna from All India Fine Arts and Crafts Society in 2001, and Kalidas Samman from Madhya Pradesh Government in 2013. He has also been feted by the All India Fine Arts and Crafts Society (New Delhi, India), Gujarat State Lalit Kala Akademi (Ahmedabad), Society of Contemporary Artists (Kolkata, India) and Gujarat Kala Pratisthaan (Surat, India).

His works are part of many important collections in India and abroad like including those of Art Council of Great Britain (London), Ministry of Education (Government of India, New Delhi), Royal College of Art (London), Fitzwilliam Museum of Cambridge (England), Lalit Kala Akademi (New Delhi, India), Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (India), Birla Academy Museum (Kolkata, India), National Gallery of Modern Art (NGMA, India), Salar Jung Museum (India), the Air India collection. Some of his works are on display at the Subhash Chandra Bose Park (Kochi, India), and the Allen Memorial Art Museum (USA).

Raghav Kaneria lives and works between the United States and India.

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