Born in 1930, Janine Mongillat was a French painter, sculptor and installation artist who was prominent in the Parisian art community She met SH Raza at the École nationale supérieure des beaux-arts de Paris while they were both pursuing fine arts The two artists met at teacher Edmond Heuze’s studio and subsequently got married in 1959 Her works are a brilliant mix of abstraction, the realistic and the absurd through the amalgamation of painting and sculpture 

Her vivid, vastly different palette from SH Raza brought out the transcendent quality of the works creating a varied experimental oeuvre She was also fond of using found objects in her works including toy fragments, newspapers, wood shavings, cord, jute and metal Mongillat also dabbled in the art of collage making One of her enduring inspirations was Indian motifs such as beaded necklaces, parrot toys and Indian dolls 

Along with an important retrospective in Guebwiller, an important art centre in France, her works were also exhibited in several countries and French salons, including at Chemould Gallery, Mumbai in 1968 and 1988

The artist passed away in 2002