Jagdish Swaminathan (Indian, 1928–1994) was born in Simla, and briefly educated at Delhi Polytechnic, and later in Warsaw, Poland. In his early days, he joined the Communist Party of India, where he worked as a journalist and art critic for Left magazine until the mid 1950s. In the late 1950s, Swaminathan decided to become a full-time artist, and with a group of other artists, founded Group 1890. Swaminathan wrote the group’s manifesto, which attacked “vulgar naturalism,” the idealism of the Bengal School, and the “hybrid mannerism” of European Modernism; they preferred and urged other artists to see the wonder in the virginal state.