Renowned painter and writer P. R. Arya Acharya died at a private hospital in Udupi on Friday.
Acharya was born and brought up in Udupi but had settled down in Dharwad. He was shifted to Udupi after his health deteriorated a few months ago.
Born on December 7, 1948, he became a seer of the Shirur Mutt, one of the Ashta Mutt of Udupi, in 1961. He relinquished ascetic life and came to Dharwad in 1971. A versatile genius, he had ventured into art and literature. He had held many solo and group painting shows in major cities of India and in Italy, France, Germany, United Kingdom and Netherlands and conducted cultural workshop in Bergamo, Italy. He had designed the logo for PRC, University of Groningen, Netherlands, and cover pages of Kannada publications.
He had directed the award winning Kannada feature film ‘Kitapati’ and two documentary films for SyndicateBank. He was the founding member of the Progressive Painters-Karnataka, president of the Kalamandala-Dharwad and a trustee in other organisations.
Acharya authored over 30 books including novels, short stories, children’s stories, plays and critical articles in Kannada. His English work ‘Oh Master and other poems’ was published by Writer’s Workshop, Kolkata. He had translated three philosophical works by Bannanje Govindacharya and Vachanas of Basavanna from Kannada to English and Michael Gotlob’s ‘Historical thinking in South – Asia’ into Kannada. ‘Monu to Mahatma’, his English translation of the Kannada work by Bolawar Mohammad Kunhi, won the Kuvempu Bhasha Bharati award in 2014. He was the recipient of Karnataka Lalitha Kala Akademi award (1998) and G. S. Shenoy Memorial Award (2005).
