Meera Mukherjee was a pioneering sculptor and researcher whose practice drew deeply from indigenous craft traditions, particularly the Dhokra techniques of metalworkers in central and eastern India. Immersing herself in the lives and practices of the Gharua community in present-day Chhattisgarh, she evolved a distinctive sculptural language that fused artisanal processes with modernist sensibilities. Her bronzes, characterised by richly worked surfaces and dynamic forms, often depicted ordinary men and women engaged in labour, protest, play, or reflection, transforming quotidian subjects into resonant expressions of the human spirit. Alongside sculpture, she also explored painting, terracotta, ceramics, and kantha embroidery.

Born in Calcutta in 1923, Mukherjee began her artistic training at classes run by the Indian Society of Oriental Art, where she studied the wash technique associated with the Bengal School. She continued at the College of Art, New Delhi, where she trained in academic realism, graphic design, and sculpture, and in the early 1950s worked with the Indonesian artist Affandi at Santiniketan. After her first solo exhibition in 1952, she received a scholarship to study at the Akademie der Bildenden Künste, Munich, where she shifted her focus decisively from painting to sculpture. Encounters during this period, including with Henry Moore, further shaped her approach to form. She passed away in 1998.