Devi Prasad – potter, educationalist, peace-activist, photographer, painter – graduated in 1944 from Kala Bhavana, Rabindranath Tagore's art school in Santiniketan, where he had the good fortune of being a student of the three master artists, Nandalal Bose, Benodebehari Mukherjee and Ramkinkar Vaij. He worked with Mahatma Gandhi and participated in various non-violent social reform movements, including the Quit India movement and Vinoba Bhave's Gramdan movement, both before and after Independence. In 1944, he joined Gandhi's ashram, Sevagram, where he worked on child art and education and edited Nayee Talim till 1962. He was Secretary General and, later, Chairman of the War Resisters International from 1962 to 1975. Devi Prasad had published widely on peace, child education, Rabindranath Tagore and Gandhi. He authored the history of the War Resisters International, practical manuals for potters in the Indian environment and translations of several seminal works in English, Hindi and Bengali. He was a pioneer of studio pottery in India, and was awarded the Lalit Kala Ratna by the Lalit Kala Akademi in 2007.
