Kapoor Galleries celebrates nearly fifty years of success as a family enterprise, and honors the memory of Urmil Kapoor (1941-2018). Together with Ramesh Kapoor, she helped bring the field of Indian and Himalayan art to where it is today. 

After India’s partition in 1947, Ramesh left Pakistan along with his parents and migrated from Lahore to Jalandhar, India. There, the government allocated his father an empty store where he could establish his own business. After a thrift merchant offered him an entire private library, Ramesh’s father started a rental library, catering to Indian refugees whose displacement left them with ample time to read. This led to the acquisition of illustrated books and manuscripts, which helped propel the Kapoor family into the field of the fine art of Indian miniature painting. 

When Ramesh finished college in 1958 and joined his father in business, the two worked together to establish relationships with museums and universities, supplying these institutions with coveted masterworks. Ramesh and Urmil married in 1967, and witnessing an increasing European and American interest in Indian Art, they immigrated to the United States and established Kapoor Galleries Inc. in New York City in 1975.