A scholar on folk and ritual arts of India, he was the director of the National Crafts Museum, New Delhi, member secretary and professor (cultural archives), at Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts (IGNCA), New Delhi,[1] and also professor at the School of Arts and Aesthetics at Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi.
[2][3] He has published a number of books on Indian folk art, including, Ganga Devi: Tradition and Expression in Mithila Painting, Other Masters: Five Contemporary Folk and Tribal Artists of India and Kalighat Painting: Images from a Changing World.
Next he received an Austrian Government Post-Graduate Scholarship (1970–1972); this helped him do a Certificate in museology from the University of Vienna in 1972, which led to a Ph.D. in Anthropology, in 1972, and ethnographic field research in Gujarat, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and Orissa.
[6] Starting in 1975 and till 1978, he conducted field work in Gujarat to set up a Museum of Folk Art for the Shreyas Foundation.
Over the years, he has published a number of books including, Ganga Devi: Tradition and Expression in Mithila Painting (1996); Other Masters: Five Contemporary Folk and Tribal Artists of India (1998); Picture Showmen: Insights into the Narrative Tradition in Indian Art (1998); Kalighat Painting: Images from a Changing World (1999); Indian Popular Culture: ‘The Conquest of the World as Picture (2004), and India’s popular Culture.