It’s with pain that I close down Vinnyasa Art Gallery and leave the city. Running an art gallery is tough.
Vinnyasa was established in July 1996 in a small space of about 650 sq.ft. at Wellington Plaza. Our gallery was inaugurated by the late T.T. Vasu. Incidentally, it was opened around the same time as the gallery at Music Academy.
As we brought in many works from Mumbai, we requested Mr. Vasu to give his gallery for the exhibition which he readily agreed to and thereafter we moved from a small establishment into a bigger one, which was the best landmark in the city — The Music Academy.
Our business flourished and Vinnyasa bloomed for the next seven-and-a-half years. After the demise of our wellwisher T.T. Vasu, the academy wanted the space for their own use and therefore, we shifted out to CIT Colony in Mylapore where we spent a decade. I wanted this to be the mini Jehangir art gallery of the South.
Vinnyasa has encouraged many young artists looking for a platform to showcase their works and we are happy many of them are doing extremely well.
We have hosted the works of various artists, including late Yusuf Arakkal, Santhana Raj, Adimoolam and Krishnamachari Bose. Our Affordable Art Show was our signature event, which helped many artists and buyers too.
When I came to Chennai to start a gallery in 1996, I brought along many artists from Mumbai and I knew only a handful of artists from South.
Vinnyasa is proud and thankful to the artist community of the South for the support they extended by giving their works on consignment and we owe much of our success to them. We thank art lovers from Chennai and neighbouring states for encouraging us to bring works from other cities.
(Viji Nagashwaran is founder of Vinnyasa Premier Art Gallery)
