M. V. Dhurandhar Biography 
Mahadev Vishwanath Dhurandhar, shortly called M. V. Dhurandhar was a noted painter in oil painting. He was also a teacher at the prestigious J. J. School of Art, and later served as its Principal. A prolific artist, he has done thousands of paintings and illustrations. Inspired by Raja Ravi Varma’s style of subjecting mythological characters from Hinduism he too followed the same tradition. Noted artist S. M. Pandit studied in J. J. School of Art while Dhurandhar was serving as its principal and he too was inspired by his style of portraying mythological characters and continued the same path. He was also associated with Ravi Varma Press as an illustrator.
M. V. Dhurandhar was born in Kolhapur, Maharashtra in 1867 during the British rule. He taught art at J. J. School of Art from 1896, and got promoted to Headmaster in 1910. During the period 1918-1931 he served as the Inspector of Drawing and Craft and finally retired as Vice-Principal in 1933. Later he published his life in the school of art as a book. As a painter, his mythological characters from Hinduism and Omar Khayyam series earned him recognition. He has also done illustrations for many books and designed postcards apart from portraits. He also drew cartoons for the Gujarati periodicals Aram and Bhoot.
In 1920, he did the illustration work of Otto Rothfield's book Women of India, published in Mumbai. It included many illustrations of women in different costumes belonging to different parts of the world. He also designed cover pages for many leading magazines. Some of those drawings date to the early 1900s. He passed away in 1944 aged 77.
Published: N/A
Updated: April 03, 2016
