Bawa died at his New Delhi home on Monday after three years in a coma following a stroke, said Ashok Bajpai, a family friend and chairman of India's National Academy of Art.

Bawa studied at the School of Art in New Delhi and worked as a silkscreen painter in Britain, where he also studied between 1964 and 1971.

Often using animal imagery - tigers and lambs sharing the same space - Bawa sought to convey the message that people could coexist with animals in nature, said art critic Ena Puri, who wrote a biography of Bawa.

His canvases were distinguished by their colors - the ochre of sunflowers, the green of paddy fields, the red of the sun and the blue of the mountain sky, she said.

'He was an icon, a person who was completely head and shoulders above his contemporaries,' Mr Puri said.

Bawa was cremated on Monday in New Delhi, said Bajpai. He is survived by a son and daughter. -- AP