Jagdish Swaminathan was born in 1928 in Simla and studied art at Delhi Polytechnic in 1956 and later at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw, Poland. He initially worked as a journalist and also joined Communist Party of India. Slowly he drifted towards art and published some radical writings on the subject. He founded Roopankar Museum, (Bharat Bhawan) Bhopal in the 1980s. Swaminathan was a man of simplicity, in life and also in his art. His love for the native tribal art practices placed greater influence on his artistic expression. His landscapes are minimal, mostly a mountain and flat background, sometimes accompanied with a tree or birds. The application of colors and restraint use of forms can uniquely be identified to his own. The artist passed away in 1994.