Satish Gujral was born in Jhelum in 1925 in pre-partition West Punjab. He has won international recognition for his paintings, graphics, mural, sculpture, architecture and interior design.

At the age of eight, a sickness terminally impaired his hearing. Today, however, he has recovered, having undergone a series of operations. During his early years of sickness, "entombed in silence," he read Urdu literature and doodled with a pencil on paper. In 1939, he joined the Mayo School of Art in Lahore to study Applied Arts. About three years before the Partition, Satish Gujral joined Sir J.J. School of Art in Mumbai to study painting but, in 1947, discontinued. Between 1944-47, he came into contact with the Progressive Artists' Group in Mumbai, but was unable to accept the PAG's total interpretation of techniques and vocabulary of European Expressionism and Cubism. He searched for a kind of modernism rooted in Indian traditions. Apart from the social content of his works, the anguish of millions who lost their homes and families during the Partition came out in angry, sweeping gestural brush strokes. Later, he tried out junk sculptures, introducing light and sound in them.

Gujral is also famous for his large murals, commissioned around India and abroad. These were most likely influenced by his 1952 apprenticeship with the master of murals, Diego Riviera, in Mexico.

From 1952 to 1974 Gujral had shows all around the world and has won numerous national and international awards. He lives and works in New Delhi.