Shanti Panchal

Shanti Panchal was born in Mesar, in Gujarat, India, and studied at the Sir JJ School of Art, Bombay and Byam Shaw School of Art, London on a British Council Scholarship 1978-80.

He is known for his watercolour paintings. He won first prize in The Sunday Times Watercolour Competition in 2001, the prestigious Ruth Borchard self-portrait Prize in 2015 and in May 2016 was awarded Eastern Eye ACTA for arts. In 2022 he won NEAC Bowyer Drawing Prize.

He has been artist-in-residence at the British Museum, the Harris Museum in Preston and the Winsor & Newton Art Factory in London. He has exhibited widely in solo and group exhibitions in Britain and abroad. 

He was invited for the Tate Britain-initiated exhibition Watercolour in Britain: Tradition and Beyond, touring to Castle Museum, Norwich; Millennium Gallery, Sheffield and Laing Art Gallery, Newcastle during 2010-11. He was showing in ‘Tiny Traces’ at the Foundling Museum, London until 19 Feb 2023 and in ‘Unselfish Selfie’ at the Atkinson, Southport until 04 March 2023. He has been commissioned by TFL Art on the Underground to create a mural in Brixton station, until November 2023.

His work is in many private and public collections, including the Arts Council of England, 

Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, The British Museum, Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool. Ruth Borchard Self-Portrait Collection. In 1989 The Imperial War Museum commissioned his painting The Scissors, The Cotton and the Uniform and in 2012 also acquired his painting The Boys Returned from Helmand and most recently the Victoria and Albert Museum, London.