Magda Nachman Acharya
Magda Nachman Acharya (20 July 1889 as Magda Nachman in Pavlovsk, Russia - 12 February 1951 in Mumbai) was a Russian born painter, draftsman and book illustrator. Her father was Jewish and mother German-Lutheran. The family were bourgeois and wealthy. She received her art education from the time she was 17 years at Zvantseva Academy in St. Petersburg.
After moving to Moscow in 1915, she experienced eventually the Russian Revolution and the civil war that followed, and was forced into a nomadic existence. During this period she made portraits as payment for room and board, designed stage sets for theaters and took odd jobs in general. She married the Indian nationalist M.P.T. Acharya in 1921 and moved with him to Berlin the following year. Hitler's seizure of power in 1933 brought with it that the race mixed couple quickly felt that life in Germany was too difficult. They got British passport in 1935 and traveled to Bombay. Where she established itself as a recognized artist who both performed portraits and illustrated books. She otherwise has illustrated a book by Vladimir Nabokov. She died in Mumbai in February 1951.