Shankar Palsikar was born in 1917, in Bhandara, a small town in Maharashtra. In his youth, Palsikar worked during the day to earn the money needed to keep up his artistic education at the studio of N.S. Bendre, who became his mentor and tutor.

From 1942–47 he studied at the Sir J.J. School of Art in Bombay and on graduating was appointed a teacher there. Several artists and students of Palsikar acknowledge his influence on them, including Tyeb Mehta, Krishen Khanna, Akbar Padamsee and M.F. Husain. Palsikar was made Dean of the J.J. School in 1968, retiring in 1975.

In 1956 he became a member of the Bombay Group of Artists, formed after the dissolution of the Progressive Artists’ Group. Other members included Shiavax Chavda, K.H. Ara, H.A. Gade, K.K. Hebbar and Mohan Samant. His work went through several phases, ending in abstraction, but the 1950s was characterised by the amalgamation of abstraction and Indian subjects, lending paintings from this period an enigmatic quality.

“Form, colour, space and texture are the basic elements for an artist. All these create a sound appealing to the eye and the mind. The sound is not possible without space and space is not possible without form and form is not possible
without colour and texture.”
Palsikar, Lalit Kala Contemporary, April-September 1971

A large retrospective was held at Jehangir Art Gallery following his death in 1984, and he is remembered as one of the most important figures in the development of Mumbai’s artistic culture in the 20th century.