Kanu Desai, born in 1907, is considered to be one of Gujarat's pioneering artists with a penchant for drawings that can be best described as pure 'Lyrical Linearity'. Desai, who is considered by many to have singularly influenced the tide of Indian art in Gujarat, was part of the dynamic usurp of Modern Indian Art that went in tandem with historic movements that took place in Bengal and Maharashtra. In fact, Desai upon the advice of Mahatma Gandhi, who was a very strong supporter and advocate of the arts, went on to study in Shantiniketan. He was tremendously influenced by masters such as Tagore and Nandlal Bose, taking a keen interest in painting, sculpture as well as plaster casting. These skills lead him to be one of Hindi cinema's prolific and talented art directors, having worked with directors such as V. Shantaram and movies like Jhanak Jhanak Payal Baaje.

From an art historical standpoint Desai's art is significant in that the boundaries between high and low art were for the first time blurred. The idea that art was to be 'seen' and experienced as a result of elitist circumstances was being challenged through both subtle and obvious artistic means by a number of artists during the early 1900's in India. Just as Raja Ravi Varma created the first ever set of oleographs based on his paintings, thereby making it accessible to the mass audience, Desai's drawings were also produced as romantic albums with titles such as Jeevan Mangal and Nritya Manjari and gifted at weddings. Critically, there are many contemporary Indian works that follow the lineage of Desai's oeuvre. Artists today use both formal and iconographical re-working of popular images that are part of a transforming culture, be it Bollywood, folk art or using what are termed in Western art history as 'Kitsch' aesthetics. The formal elements, be it the crisp curvilinear lines or the simplistic composition also speaks of a culture that was daringly persistent in taking from one's own culture albeit without a sense of conflict or contradiction that is quite prominent in current artistic exploration. Rather it serves as a prototype for the current generation of younger artists. Kanu Desai worked with other contemporaries such as Somalal Shah, Jagan Mehta and Ravishanker Raval who started the 'Gujarat Chitra Kala Sangh' which was closely tied to Shantiniketan.