Vasant Raghunath Amberkar was born in 1907 in Mumbai. From 1933-1939 he studied under S. L. Haldankar at S. L. Haldankar's Institute. He completed four years Ar training correspondence course of Press Art School under Percy V. Bradshaw.
He exhibited solo at Jehangir entitled "Towards Light" in 1962. His oil paintings, aquarelles and pastel drawings are animated by a lively vision and a fine sense of observation that capture moments filled with a magical, amorphous presence. Art India conferences were held from 1946 to 1949 which resulted in the foundation of Lalit Kala Academy, Prof. Amberkar represented as the president of Art Society of India with Shri. M. R. Achrekar, Shri. Manu Thacker, Dinesh Vora and Mulkaj Anand from bombay.
A strong Expressionist definition of figuration and compositional values underlie his work. The works are alive with an existential play, that evokes the shifting emotive quality of his creative ideation, where colour speaks and evokes the poetry embedded in everyday happenings. He worked with oils and powder pastels rendered on hardboard, canvas and paper which shows Amberkar's emotive fullness to the composition.
In his portraits of heads largely rendered in oils on paper the artist highlights the immediacy of the subject's presence. Strong, textured surfaces highlight the features, where the tentative brushstrokes are built in layers to wash over one another. Amberkar was awarded a Fellowship of the Lalit Kala Akademi in 1979. In 1946 he was award for his painting in the Exhibition of Art Society of India.