Mukherjee was born with a severe eye problem. Despite being myopic in one eye and blind in the other, he continued to paint and do murals even after he lost his eyesight completely following an unsuccessful eye
cataract operation in 1956. In 1919, he took admission in
Kala Bhavana, the art faculty of Visva-Bharati University. He was a student of Indian artist
Nandalal Bose, and a friend and associate of
Ramkinkar Baij, a sculptor. In 1925, he joined
Kala Bhava Bijn as a member of the teaching faculty. His notable students included painter
Jahar Dasgupta, Ramananda Bandopadhyay,
K.G. Subramanyan,
Beohar Rammanohar Sinha, sculptor & printmaker
Somnath Hore, designer Riten Majumdar and filmmaker
Satyajit Ray. In 1949, he left
Kala Bhavan and joined as a curator at the Nepal Government Museum in Kathmandu. From 1951 to 1952, he taught at the
Banasthali Vidyapith in Rajasthan. In 1952, he along with his wife Leela, started an art training school in
Mussoorie. In 1958, he returned to
Kala Bhavan, and later became its principal. In 1979, a collection of his Bengali writings,
Chitrakar, was published. In
Oxford Art Online,
R. Si'va Kumar claims, "His major work is the monumental 1947 mural at the Hindi Bhavan, Sha'ntiniketan, based on the lives of medieval Indian saints and painted without cartoons. With its conceptual breadth and synthesis of elements from Giotto and Tawaraya Sotatsu, as well as from the art of such ancient Indian sites as
Ajanta and
Mamallapuram, it is among the greatest achievements in contemporary Indian painting." Mukherjee's wife,
Leela Mukherjee, collaborated on some of his work, such as a mural at Hindi Bhavan, Santiniketan, in 1947. ==Style==