Himmat Shah was born in Lothal, Gujarat in 1933. He studied at the J J School of Art in Mumbai. From 1956 to 1960, in Baroda, he learnt avidly from N.S. Bendre and K.G. Subramanyan whose quest for language and appraisal of folk art stimulated him. Shah was a member of Group 1890, a short-lived artists' collective founded by J. Swaminathan. The then Prime Minister of India, Jawaharlal Nehru, opened the group's first and only show in 1963. On the recommendation of the poet diplomat Octavio Paz, Shah received a French Government scholarship in 1967 to study etching at Atelier 17 under SW Hayter and Krishna Reddy in Paris.

 

On his return, from 1967 to 1971, Shah designed monumental murals at Ahmedabad; and later relief sculpture series called silver paintings and sculptures in terracotta and bronze. Shifting to Delhi, to a studio at Garhi, he experimented with clays and slips to develop a unique vocabulary in terracotta. In 2004 – 2005, Shah worked on bronze sculptures, cast at a foundry in London. Even today, Himmat Shah continues to push boundaries in sculpture and drawing, working from his studio in Jaipur, established in 2000.