Abalal Rahiman (born Abdul Aziz) was a pioneering Indian modernist painter from Kolhapur, Maharashtra, widely regarded as the region’s first formally trained artist and the earliest master-painter in the academic realist tradition.

Trained at the Sir J. J. School of Art, Bombay, where he won the Viceroy’s Gold Medal in 1886, Rahiman returned to Kolhapur to serve as court painter to Chhatrapati Shahu Maharaj from 1888 until the Maharaja’s death in 1922.

Working primarily in watercolour and oil on oil paper, Abalal Rahiman produced more than 20,000 works over his career, excelling in realist portraiture, court scenes, still lifes, and atmospheric landscapes. He is especially celebrated for his mastery of chiaroscuro and his sensitive studies of the Kolhapur landscape, particularly the Rankala lake and Sandhyamath, capturing shifting light effects on water with subtle tonal gradations.

Popularly known as “Abalal Master,” he is remembered as Kolhapur’s most revered and influential artist of his time, bridging traditional manuscript art and modern academic painting.