Narayan Shridhar Bendre was born in 1910 in Indore.  He got his early art education in the State Art School, Indore. Later he obtained his Government Diploma in Art from Bombay in 1933.

In 1945 he stayed in Shantiniketan as an artist with Nandalal Bose, Ram Kinkar Baij, Binod Behari Mukherjee. In 1948 he left for New York where he exhibited his work in Windermere Gallery. On his way back to India he traveled through Europe and came across the work of European modern artists. He visited West Asia and London in 1958, the USA and Japan in 1962.