Why it belongs in ORBIS
Family-run blue-pottery workshop in Bani Park, Jaipur, founded by Kripal Singh Shekhawat, who revived the historic Jaipur blue-pottery craft after research beginning in the 1960s. Still operated by his family today.
Kripal Kumbh was founded by Kripal Singh Shekhawat (1922-2008), a Rajasthan-born artist trained in painting at Santiniketan and in oriental arts at a university in Tokyo, who turned to ceramics and revived the largely lapsed craft of Jaipur blue pottery. He established Kripal Kumbh in Bani Park, Jaipur - commercial listings place its founding around the 1960s to 1970 - as both a working workshop and a retail shop for the glazed, cobalt-and-turquoise pottery the city is now associated with internationally. After his death in 2008, the family-run operation continued under his wife, Sajjan Kanwar, assisted by their three daughters, keeping the workshop as a hands-on production site rather than a purely retail storefront.