B. C. Sanyal completed his studies from the Government School of Art in 1923, Calcutta and was commissioned right afterwards to prepare a statue of Lala Lajpat Rai in Lahore. He made Lahore his home for another 17-18 years and taught at the Mayo school of Arts until 1936 when he quit the institution to set up his own studio, known as Lahore School of Fine Arts. It was during the partition in 1947 that he moved to Delhi leaving his studio in Lahore and founded the Delhi Shilpi Chakra. Sanyal and other notable artists like P. N. Mago, Kanwal Krishna and Dhanraj Bhagat formed this group with the social backdrop of the partition.

During the short time that the Delhi Shilpi Chakra survived from1949-52, Sanyal created images that did not conforn to the tenets of Academic Realism or the mannerism of the Bengal School. He created images like the courtyard, 1950 and Amba, 1950 in oil, which reflect the influence of European Modern art movements.

Sanyal worked with themes that best expressed the ideas and emotions of that time, among which he preferred human struggle to be one of the most pertinent. His style post the existence of Delhi Shilpi Chakra became more serene and pleasant reflective in his landscapes of the Kangra Hills, in watercolours. Sanyal was both a painter and sculptor who later in his last days also ventured into printmaking.