Born in 1933 in Chikhli, a village in southern Gujarat, Chhaganbhai Dayaram Mistry grew up surrounded by local craft traditions. His father, a skilled carpenter, played an important role in his early exposure to making and working with materials. As a child, Mistry made small toys from wood and shaped bullock carts and animal figures from clay, experiences that contributed to his early interest in form and craftsmanship.

After completing high school in 1959, Mistry moved to Ahmedabad and enrolled at C. N. College of Fine Arts. He received a Diploma in Painting in 1960 and completed the Art Master course in 1961. He subsequently joined the institution's Fine Arts department as a teacher. During his training, he studied under artists including Rasiklal Parikh.

Mistry's artistic practice developed through a sustained engagement with the folk and tribal traditions of Gujarat. He travelled extensively through regions including Dang, Saurashtra and Kutch, closely studying local art and its distinctive forms. His visual vocabulary was also shaped by temple murals, village wall paintings, textiles, mirror work and popular representations of deities. Rather than reproducing these traditions directly, he stylised and transformed their forms within his own modern artistic language.

His paintings are characterised by vivid colour, stylised forms and decorative compositions. Folk motifs frequently appear alongside elements drawn from Indian mythology and nature. He also adapted narratives from the Ramayana and Mahabharata and represented figures such as Ganesha, Shakti and Muralidhar through a highly individualised visual vocabulary.

Mistry began exhibiting in the 1960s and held his first solo exhibition at Sanskar Kendra Museum, Ahmedabad, in 1972. His subsequent exhibitions included shows at Lalit Kala Akademi, Ahmedabad, and Jehangir Art Gallery, Mumbai, among others. His work has also been exhibited internationally. He received several honours during his career, including awards from the Gujarat State Lalit Kala Akademi, Hyderabad Art Society, Bombay Art Society and AIFACS, as well as a Senior Artist Fellowship from the Gujarat State Lalit Kala Akademi in 2001.

C D Mistry passed away in May 2023, leaving behind a body of work that brought together the visual traditions of Gujarat, Indian mythology and the language of modern painting.