Om Prakash Jain (born 1929) is an Indian art collector, patron and philanthropist. He is the Founder-President of the Sanskriti Pratishthan (Sankriti Foundation), established in 1979, which runs the Sanskriti Kendra Museums at Anandagram, Delhi. He has remained the convenor of the Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage (INTACH) for 15 years. He has been a promoter of Neemrana Fort Palace Hotels.

Biography

Jain was born and brought up in a business family in

Old Delhi Old Delhi or Purani Dilli is an area in the Central Delhi district of Delhi, India. It was founded as a walled city named Shahjahanabad in 1648, when Shah Jahan (the Mughal emperor at the time) decided to shift the Mughal capital from Agra. Th ...

, where his family has an office at

Chawri Bazar Chawri Bazar is a specialized wholesale market of brass, copper and paper products. Established in 1840, with a hardware market, it was the first wholesale market of Old Delhi it lies to the west of Jama Masjid in Delhi. It can be reached ...

. Without much formal education, he joined the family paper-trading business at an early age. It was a chance meeting with writer

Mulk Raj Anand Mulk Raj Anand (12 December 1905 – 28 September 2004) was an Indian writer in English, recognised for his depiction of the lives of the poorer castes in traditional Indian society. One of the pioneers of Indo-Anglian fiction, he, togethe ...

, in the 1970s, that inspired him to work for art and cultural heritage conservation. He spent many years collecting everyday functional objects, like kitchen and household items, made by artisans. In 1984, he set up a small museum with his private collection at the basement of his Kinari Bazaar house in Chandni Chowk area. 10 years later, the collection shifted to the Sanskriti Museum of Everyday Art, at Anandagram an artist village, he established on the outskirts of Delhi. Subsequently, the Museum of Terracotta Art and Textile were also established. WHAT'S DOING IN; Delhi
Travel, New York Times, 30 November 2003, pg. 2.

Honours

He was awarded the

Padma Shri Padma Shri (IAST: ''padma śrī''), also spelled Padma Shree, is the fourth-highest Indian honours system, civilian award of the Republic of India, after the Bharat Ratna, the Padma Vibhushan and the Padma Bhushan. Instituted on 2 January 1954, ...

Government of India The Government of India (ISO: ; often abbreviated as GoI), known as the Union Government or Central Government but often simply as the Centre, is the national government of the Republic of India, a federal democracy located in South Asia, c ...

, in 2003, for his contribution to the Arts.

References

External links

O. P. Jain, Founder President

Sanskriti Foundation Sanskriti Museums are a set of three museums namely, Museum of ‘Everyday Art’, Museum of Indian Terracotta ( tribal art) and Textile Museum. It is housed within Sanskriti Kendra complex, at Anandagram, an artist village complex, spread over ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Jain, O. P. 1929 births Living people Businesspeople from Delhi Indian philanthropists Recipients of the Padma Shri in arts Indian arts administrators Indian art curators Indian art collectors