Joshi was born on 5 March 1931 at Shahpura in Bhilwara district in a family widely known as the traditional artists of phad painting for the last few centuries.

Elephant, horses, lions, and women with pitchers on their heads were the usual motifs of his painting.

To begin with his experimentation, he introduced and composed small phad paintings with new themes for this traditional art-form based on the episodes of the Devnarayan Mahagatha, the battle of Haldighati and the jauhar (self-immolation) of Padmini, the lives of Maharana Pratap, Prithvi Raj Chouhan, Rani Hadi, Padmini, Dhola Maru, Amar Singh Rathore, Buddha, Mahavira and the narratives from the Gitagovindam, the Ramayana, the Mahabharata and the Kumarasambhava.

Kalyan Joshi's phad paintings are now adorning prime minister Narendra Modi's office walls.

A long association with Komal Kothari, Kapila Vatsyayan and Jyotindra Jain inspired Joshi to experiment and innovate.