Bharti Dayal (b. 1961, Samastipur; raised in Darbhanga) learned the dense line and motif of Madhubani from her mother and grandmother before turning professional in 1984. Working from Delhi, she has carried the tradition onto canvas and acrylic and toward new subjects — winning the National Award for the craft in 2006 and exhibiting from India to the Museum of Sacred Art in Belgium, where she was hailed as an ambassador of Madhubani to the modern world.
Her cover art for The New Bihar — a girl on a bicycle, an image of education and women’s freedom — captures her project: to keep Mithila painting both rooted and alive to the present, and to train a new generation of women artists.