India, Nov. 9 -- Renowned contemporary artist Arpita Singh, 89, passed away on Monday morning in New Delhi. She was born in 1937 in what is present-day Bangladesh. A graduate of Delhi Polytechnic in 1959, Singh worked with the Cottage Industries Restoration Programme, a government body.

Iconographically dense and vibrantly colourful, Singh's canvases presented a clear-eyed view of women's lives. Though her style changed over decades - from monochromatic abstracts to the more colourful Bengali folktale-based paintings - Singh's works were replete with the emotional inner lives of the characters she depicted.

Singh has been described as both a modernist and a figurative artist. Her canvases deployed the perspective And narrative style fou...