Ravishankar Raval was born in a brahmin family[1] on 1 August 1892 in Bhavnagar (now in Gujarat, India).

He advised him to join arts by his Parsi professor Sanjana who was pleased with his artistic skills.

School and a budding portrait painter, Raval gave up these influences to embrace the revival of Indian art that was then gaining ground.

In the spirit of cultural nationalism, he held on to these ideas, despite harsh criticism, such as when the Rajput-art-style painting 'Bilwamangal' for which he won the Bombay Art Society gold medal was dismissed by a Parsi artist as 'a printed label on mill cloth'[2] He received Mayo Gold Medal at Sir J. J.

In 1915, Raval met a prominent journalist Hajji Mohammad Alarakhiya, who was looking for a young artist-illustrator for his new cultural magazine Visami Sadi (The Twentieth Century), and joined him.

From Visami Sadi, he was inspired to start new cultural magazine Kumar at Ahmedabad in 1924, which is still published.

The magazine is said to have made a great impact on Gujarati arts, and was known for its illustrations and experiments in typography.

In 1948, he joined Russian artist Nicholas Roerich at his Kulu art center as the house guest.

Other noteworthy work includes the remarkable artwork in Chandapoli, a Gujarati children's magazine and Kailash ma Ratri (A night at Mt.Kailash).

Raval illustrated Bawlana Parakramo (1939), a Gujarati adaptation of the Pinocchio story by Hansa Mehta.

[8] He also drew many paintings of historical figures such as Narsinh Mehta, Mirabai, Hemchandracharya, Chandra Kaumudi, Akho which became cultural image of the characters.

He received Ranjitram Suvarna Chandrak (1930), the highest literary award in Gujarati literature for his art essays.