Born in Calcutta on 20 October 1947, Shuvaprasanna Bhattacharjee is a quintessential painter of the eastern metropolis that he unabashedly loves. He graduated from the Indian College of Art, Rabindra Bharati University, Calcutta, in 1969. An active member of the Calcutta Painters group, urban themes are a constant in his work.

Skilled in painting, etching, and drawing in mixed media, his artistic and personal concerns lie with urban decay and an anxiety of the collapse of urban culture, seen in his well-known works featuring crows and owls, and the series Illusion, Clock and Bird. This is also visible in his cityscapes, which are curiously devoid of human presence; empty lanes and bylanes speak of the absence of the multitudes that populate this crowded city.