From your photograph.
Old, faded or joined-up prints, painted in oil on canvas.
Shivraj Singh Art Gallery · Mhow महू
Portraits made to be kept.
Oil on canvas and graphite on paper, painted by the legend at Mhow since 1947 — from the photographs you carry in, or from nothing but a description.
Commission a portrait चित्र बनवाइएOur recommendations.
A likeness in pencil.
Graphite on mounted paper, framed under glass.
From only an idea.
The pencil layout comes to you first, and does the work a photograph would have done.
See it on your wall. Add-on · preview
Photograph the wall; the studio’s AI helper suggests the canvas size that suits it.
Visit the gallery.
Studio Shivraj Singh, Samarth Park, Mhow — behind D Mart. Send word before you travel.
Plan a visitA photograph in hand, or only an idea: portraits in oil and in pencil.
Since 1947 this studio has painted the faces of families. Some are worked from photographs carried to the counter. Others begin with nothing but a description, given in the family’s own words. Either is enough to start, and the studio will tell you plainly which of the two suits the painting you have in mind.
Painted to order. Never repeated.
Each plate is entered by its medium and its size, as the studio has always entered them. Sitters are not named, and neither are the families who commissioned them.
Made for one customer, and theirs. Every painting and sketch here was made by hand to one customer’s requirement, and belongs to the family or person it was made for. None of them is offered to anyone else, and no two are alike.
What a commission costs. There is no price list. The price of a work is its materials and the value of the art: what you ask for, its size and the time it takes. The studio quotes each commission in person.
Original work. © Shivraj Singh Art Gallery. All rights reserved. These pictures may not be copied, saved or reproduced.
Optional add-on · preview for the family’s approval
Not sure of the size?
Size is the one decision families most often revisit. Photograph the wall where the painting will hang and see the work there at its true size. The studio’s AI helper measures the wall and suggests a canvas from the studio’s own list.
- Photograph the wall आपका कमरा — or choose a sample room.
- The wall is measured माप — by the AI helper, or by hand.
- See it hang दीवार पर देखें — with the size that suits it.
Advisory only: the studio confirms the size with you at the counter. Your photograph stays in this browser, except for the single measuring step, and is not kept. Nothing is charged.
Commission a work.
Choose the kind of work, then how it begins: from the photographs you have, or from an idea described in your own words. No money is taken on this website at any step; the studio quotes each commission in person.
Oil painting तैल चित्र
Oil on canvas. The studio’s principal medium since 1947.
Pencil sketch पेंसिल स्केच
Graphite on paper, framed under glass.
Colour sketch रंगीन स्केच
Colour pencil on paper, framed under glass.
Large composition बड़ी रचना
Several figures or a full scene, on a large canvas.
The materials.
What a Shivraj Singh portrait is made of, and whose materials the studio trusts.
Canvas
We use international-quality primed canvas, the kind used by the world’s well-recognised artists.
Oil colours
Worked in layers, each left to dry before the next. We use the world’s best makers of oil colours:
Winsor & Newton, Pébéo, Lefranc Bourgeois, Schmincke and Daler-Rowney.
Graphite pencils
Grades from hard to soft, for the fine line and the deep shadow:
Staedtler, General’s, Cretacolor, Mitsubishi and Koh-i-Noor.
For colour sketches:
Derwent, Prismacolor, Faber-Castell, Conté à Paris and Caran d’Ache.
Drawing paper
Durable and suited to graphite and charcoal:
Fabriano paper from Italy.
Very smooth, heavy and excellent for detailed graphite work:
Strathmore Bristol board.
Frames & glass
Handmade ornamental Italian gold-gilded frames for oils; a plain charcoal moulding and glass for graphite.
The studio’s own mark
The studio’s trademark, and what it stands for.
Brand names shown here belong to their makers and are named only to say what the studio uses.
How a painting is made.
The order of work has not changed much since 1947. It is slow on purpose: every question is settled before the paint goes on, because a canvas is a poor place to change one’s mind.
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What you bring
Either photographs, or a description. For a likeness the studio would rather have one sharp photograph of the eyes than ten pleasant ones. Faded, creased and joined-up prints are all worked from — they are most of what comes to the counter.
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Medium, size and sitters
Oil on canvas carries colour, cloth and jewellery, and is what most families ask for. Graphite on mounted paper suits a quieter likeness and is framed under glass. The size follows the wall it is going on, and the number of sitters follows the family.
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The pencil layout
Before any colour, a layout is drawn and sent to you — the pose, the crop, the placing of each figure, the objects in the frame. This is the moment for changes. Once the painting is under way, a change means painting it again.
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The painting
The face is built first and carried furthest; cloth, jewellery and ground follow it. Oils are worked in layers and must be left to dry between them, which is most of why an oil takes longer than a drawing.
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Your sight of it
You are shown the painting before it is framed, and again after. Small corrections to a likeness are expected at this stage and are part of the work, not an extra.
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Framing
Mouldings are chosen against the finished canvas, not from a catalogue — gilt and carved for oils, a plain moulding and glass for graphite. The studio will hold several against the painting so you can see which the picture wants.
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Collection or carriage
Most families collect at Mhow. A painting that must travel is crated by the studio. Either way the arrangement is made with the studio directly.
Defining portraits & paintings since 1947.
The gallery was founded at Mhow in 1947 by the late Mr. Shivraj Singh Chouhan, whose own portrait now hangs in the room where the work is done. The monogram he drew — the sunburst and the joined initials — still carries the year beneath it.
His sons keep the studio at the same address at Mhow: Thakur Sanjay Singh, Kunwar Ajay Singh & Kunwar Ashish Singh. The mediums are unchanged, the counter is in the same room, and the work is still taken one commission at a time.
The mark
The monogram, drawn by the founder. Estd. 1947 is set beneath it.
A legacy of 75+ years
The room
One counter, one easel at a time
Work is not farmed out and not hurried. Families who have waited have generally waited for the same reason.
Visit the gallery.
The gallery is at Samarth Park, Umaria, behind D Mart. Please send word before you travel, so that a painting can be taken down and set up for you to see properly.
The address
- GalleryStudio Shivraj Singh
- Address25b, Samarth Park,
Umaria, Mhow 453331
(M.P.) INDIA - LandmarkBehind D Mart
- Telephone+91 98262 98336
+91 87707 27967
+91 90098 85446 - WhatsApp+91 98262 98336
- Emailcontact@shivrajsingh.com
- Founded1947, by the late Mr. Shivraj Singh
Before you come
Send word first. The studio is a working room, not a shop floor. A telephone call or a message on WhatsApp lets the family set aside the time and bring out whichever paintings are worth your journey.
Bring the photographs themselves. If you are thinking of a portrait, carry the prints, the album, even the damaged ones. A photograph seen in the hand tells the studio more than a photograph on a telephone screen.
Bring the measurement of the wall. Size is the one decision families most often revisit. The height and width of the space, and the distance one usually stands from it, settle the question quickly.
What the studio undertakes
Portraits and paintings in oil on canvas. Portraits in graphite on mounted paper. Colour sketches in colour pencil on paper. Larger commissioned compositions in oil. Fine art photography and portrait photography.
Framing is arranged with each painting. The studio does not undertake work outside these — it has never advertised anything it does not do itself.
From the families
What families have said
The studio is gathering, with their permission, a line or two from the families it has painted for. Their words will stand here as they come.
Have a painting or a drawing from the studio?
Send us a line about it — how it was made, where it hangs, what it means in your house — and say how you would like to be named, perhaps by initials and town. Nothing is published without your word.
Send a line on WhatsApp व्हाट्सएपDisclaimer & privacy
Nothing is charged or reserved here; the studio quotes each commission in person.
The website counts its visits for the studio: which parts of the page were seen and for how long, which buttons and links were pressed, the site that sent you, the town, region and country your connection comes from, the kind of device, its system and browser, and any campaign label in the link. TarkAI, who look after the website, keep this count on Cloudflare for thirteen months. No cookies are used and your IP address is not stored; a visitor is known only by a code that changes every day, and nothing you type or upload is recorded.