Sunayani Devi, considered as a primitivist, was born to a family
of talented writers and painters. Her uncle was Rabindranath
Tagore and her older brothers were Abanindranath and
Gaganendranath. From the start her paintings have been considered
bold, original, resembling ancient Jain paintings in their
hieratic quality. While her initial style was very similar to
Abanindranath's, employing the wash technique to its fullest, her
later paintings, reflected an ideation arising from the encounter
with village clay dolls that often adorned urban homes, and
Kalighat pats. The modernist discourse of primitive simplicity
and the nationalist discourse of cultural authenticity come
together in the image of Sunayani Devi as a nationalist artist.
Critical reviews of her paintings, have called her a naïve
painter, who used folk motifs with immense charm and feeling.