He was in the same genre and period of artists like Nicholas Roerich and Amrita Shergill, Jain said.

'He was a spiritually enlightened man and never tried to force himself. He loved painting Lord Shiva and the Mansarovar lake and he was an important early contemporary artist post Independence,' Jain said.

Shobha Deepak Singh, a close friend and director of the Shriram Bharatiya Kala Kendra, said she had two of Singh's mountain-scapes in her personal collection.

'He was a warm human being and could have become a Roerich had he been promoted,' Singh told IANS.