Bal Chhabda is an unsung figure in the story of Indian Modernism. He became a close friend and contemporary of the Progressive Artists' Group in Mumbai, after a chance meeting with Maqbool Fida Husain in the early 1950s. Through Husain and their visits to the Bhulabhai Desai Institute, Chhabda soon met and befriended Tyeb Mehta, Sayed haider Raza, Ram Kumar, Krishen Khanna and Gaitonde among others. Like Mehta, he had a background in film making and it was not until Husain and Gaitonde encouraged him to paint in 1958 that he actually embarked on a career as an artist. A year later, Chhabda founded Gallery 59, which went on to hold cornerstone exhibitions for his contemporaries.

His work was greeted with critical acclaim as he participated in exhibitions in India and internationally, including the Salon de la Jeune Peinture, Paris, and the Tokyo Biennale, in 1960. Chhabda’s paintings typify bold abstraction with congregation of figures that have a monolithic quality. In his paintings figures are suggested through areas of space and symphonic color rather than line almost looking like a negative photograph. Chhabda was very much an 'artist's artist' celebrated by his colleagues, and a pivotal figure within Indian Modernism.