Born in 1922 in Mumbai, Jehangir Sabavala studied at the best-known art colleges of the world. After receiving his first fine arts diploma from the Sir J.J. School of Art, Mumbai, in 1944, Sabavala went to Europe and studied at the Heatherley School of Art, London, from 1945 to 1947, and in Paris at the Academie Andre Lhote from 1948 to 1951, the Academie Julian from 1953 to 1954, and the Academic de la Grande Chaumiere in 1957.

Sabavala worked most often in oils, creating landscapes, seascapes and figures deftly with his brush, and had started to paint cityscapes as well. An artist practicing in the modernist style with a deeply ingrained classical influence, Jehangir Sabavala created almost geometric wedges out of paint, which he used to put together to form vast, tranquil scenes.

Sabavala’s career had spanned more than sixty years. To the artist’s credit are over thirty solo exhibitions and numerous group exhibitions held across India as well as abroad.
Three monographs had been published on this artist, by eminent art publishers including the house of Tata- McGraw-Hill and the Lalit Kala Akademi, New Delhi. Sabavala was awarded the ‘Padma Shri’ by the Government of India in 1977, and the Lalit Kala Ratna by the President of India in 2007.