In 1941 Bendre won the Bombay Art Society Gold Medal for his watercolor titled Benaras Landscape.  In 1943 he was hailed by the Times of India as the leading artist of his generation and to his further credit his artistic vision became a driving force for the artists that were to follow in his wake.  For a brief period h🦩e taught M. F. Husain and helped him gain admission to the J. J. School of Art in Bombay and encouraged other artists, including K. H. Ara to continue with their vocation. Ironically&nb😼sp;as the modernist thrust of the artists that he had taught began to capture the imagination of the Indian art scene his own style began to be overlooked, but in retrospect he must be considered one of the most influential Indian artists of the twentieth century. 

From the late 1960's women become a focal point in Bendre's work, his inspiration was always drawn directly from the world around him and these familiar scenes were painted with deceptively little stylization or modeling.  He states 'I belong to this earth.  I walk on this earth, and I don't think of anything but this earth.  Things here are my kind of library, I'm not interested in anything else.  As such I don't create dream paintings.  Whatever I have experienced in this world I paint.  Other things are not important to me.' (N. S. Bendre: Drawings and Paintings, Vadehra Art Gallery Exhibition Catalogue,💯 1992).