Winter Exhibition 2021

Shanti Panchal

Shanti Panchal was born in Mesar, a village in Gujarat, India, and studied at the Sir JJ School of Art, Bombay.
He came to England on a British Council scholarship to study at the Byam Shaw School of Art, London from 1978-80, and has lived and worked in London since.
He has been artist-in-residence at the British Museum, the Harris Museum in Preston and the Winsor & Newton Art Factory in London. He has exhibited widely in solo and group exhibitions in Britain and abroad.

One-person exhibitions have included:

1988-9 Earthen Shades: Paintings by Shanti Panchal, organised by Cartwright Hall, Bradford and Castlefield Gallery, Manchester, went on tour ten public galleries.  

1992 The Royal Festival Hall, London

1993 Shanti Panchal: New Paintings, Museum of Modern Art, Oxford

1998-9 Shanti Panchal: The Windows of the Soul at Angel Row Gallery, Nottingham and Midlands Art Centre, Birmingham, and touring

2000 Shanti Panchal: Private Myths, Pitshanger Gallery, London and touring to:

2001 Cartwright Hall, Bradford, Blackburn Museum and Art Galleries, and

2002 Herbert Art Gallery and Museum, Coventry

2003 Shanti Panchal: A Personal Journey, a British Council touring exhibition in India

2007 Shanti Panchal: In the Mind's Eye, Chelmsford Museum.

2013 Shanti Panchal: Paintings of Exile and Home, Piano Nobile Gallery, London

2013-16 Shanti Panchal: The way of Watercolour, Hayletts Gallery, Maldon, Essex

2016-17 Shanti Panchal: The Ragas of the Dawn, Kings Place/Piano Nobile, London

2019 Shanti Panchal: In Colour and Shades, Hayletts Gallery, Maldon, Essex.

2020 Shanti Panchal: A Personal Language of Painting, online exhibition at ben Uri.

He is known for his watercolour paintings. He was shortlisted for the Jackson’s Open Painting Prize early this year and won the Second Prize at the John Ruskin Prize at Holden Gallery, Manchester 2019. He won the John Moores Painting Prize, Liverpool 2018/1989 and the BP Portrait Award, National Portrait Gallery1991. He won first prize in The Sunday Times Watercolour Competition in 2001 and in 2012 won the second. He won the prestigious Ruth Borchard self-portrait Prize in 2015 and in May 2016 was awarded Eastern Eye ACTA for arts. His work is in many private and public collections, including the Arts Council of England, Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, The British Museum, Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool. Ruth Borchard Self-Portrait Collection. In 1989 The Imperial War Museum commissioned his painting The Scissors, The Cotton and the Uniform and in 2012 also acquired his painting The Boys Returned from Helmand and most recently the Victoria and Albert Museum, London.

He contributed to a touring show At the Edge: British Art 1950-2000, at Touchstones Rochdale; Harris Museum & Art Gallery, Preston; Gallery Oldham and Bolton Museum & Art Gallery during 2009-10. He represented the UK at the South Korea International Art Fair in Seoul in 2010.
He was invited for the Tate Britain-initiated exhibition Watercolour in Britain: Tradition and Beyond, touring to Castle Museum, Norwich; Millennium Gallery, Sheffield and Laing Art Gallery, Newcastle during 2010-11.
He was part of the exhibition, The Past is Now: Birmingham and the British Empire, 28 October 2017 to 12 March 2018.
He was shortlisted for ‘Portrait artist of the Year 2018’ by Sky Art Television. For further information please visit www.shantipanchal.com