Rabin Mondal was born in 1932, in Kolkata, in a poor government official`s family. His works exploit the grotesque to express inner turmoil and human struggles. His feeling towards his environment has been rather queer. Perhaps the milieu in which he spent his formative years has something to do with it. As a young painter, Mondal was attracted by Jamini Roy`s folk style and Rabindranath Tagore`s disquieting paintings and drawings. But the show by French artists was virtually a turning point in his artistic career. "This was like opening a window to an astounding, astonishing, unsuspected world," he says. This encounter with avant-garde Western art helped him to later incorporate elements from it in his own work. Mondal has also been quite active with the avant-garde artist`s organizations in the city. He was a Lalit Kala Akademi member from 1979-1982 that has also published a book of his drawings. It has taken Rabin Mondal decades to emerge as one of India`s leading modern painters.