[1] He played a role in the establishment of the Bharat Bhawan, a multi-art complex in Bhopal, in 1982, and served as the director of its Roopankar Art Museum till 1990.
After schooling in Delhi, he joined a pre-medical course, but left the course and his home to run away to Kolkata, where he did odd jobs to earn living.
He started taking evening classes at the Delhi Polytechnic, Kashmere Gate, training under artists Sailoz Mukherjee and Bhabesh Chandra Sanyal.
Upon his return to India in 1960, he held his first major exhibition, displaying his graphic prints and oil paintings alongside artists P. K. Razadan and N. Dixit.
[3] Swaminathan was awarded the Jawaharlal Nehru Fellowship in 1968 for research on "The significance of the traditional Numan to Contemporary Art".