A mid a sea of sculptures, a family of expats enjoys the afternoon lull over a slow lunch, at Cholamandal Artists’ Village. A private bus drops a group of Parisian tourists; Pablo Picasso, the resident dog, lies sprawled at the entrance; and inside, senior artists S. Nandagopal, P. Gopinath, M. Senathipathi and A. Selvaraj enjoy hot cups of tea. Topics range from a discussion on the Rs. 15-lakh-worth of paintings that were sold the previous day, to the year 1966, when the first cottage was built on the land that cost a mere Rs. 4,000 an acre. This 10-acre property is now worth half a billion, says Nandagopal, with a pause that’s long enough to paint a past versus present picture of the village — the past with its vast expanse of sand and casuarina trees, and the present with the newly-renovated ‘Museum of the Madras Movement’.
A short flight of stairs leads us to the space where the history of the Madras Art Movement, spanning from 1940 to 1985, spills out from frames and installations. A large stainless steel board, with names of 55 artists engraved on it, marks the entrance. Nandagopal reads out the names of those who have passed on; it’s almost three-fourth of the list. Their works, however, remain immortal among the 89 in the museum, and as part of a comprehensive catalogue. Sourcing the works of artists, who had started off at the Government College of Fine Arts (earlier known as the Madras School of Art), the oldest art institution in India, and dispersed far and wide over the years, was a daunting task; most of them had sold all their works to galleries, and clients around the globe who are untraceable now, says Nandagopal.
Nandagopal, who studied in the college in the 1960s, contacted the artists’ families personally, and “it helped that most were my seniors and students of my father {KCS Panicker, who pioneered the Movement and envisioned Cholamandal Artists’ Village}.” He explains, “It was difficult to source a piece by Sultan Ali, but luckily his daughter gave it to us {‘Bhairava’, oil on canvas, worth Rs. 56 lakh}, and fortunately, we also got a work {‘Ganesha’, oil on canvas) by Reddeppa Naidu from his daughter who lives in the U.S. We realised that we did not have any of S.K. Rajavelu’s works though he lived here. He had given most of them to the National Gallery of Modern Art in Delhi, so we compelled him to stay here and complete two works (ink on paper) at the studio here, a few years ago. Thank God we did that, because he passed away in 2015,” he says.
Similarly, all of Panicker’s paintings (a four by four is valued at a whopping Rs. 1 crore today) were given to the KCS Panicker Gallery in Thiruvananthapuram. Two originals have been given by playwright Girish Karnad and Panicker’s daughter, Sumitra, to the museum. “Recently, artist TRP Mookiah passed away, and I requested one of my friends, an industrialist, to buy one of his works and donate it to the museum, and he did,” Nandagopal says. Frame by frame, he and the team managed to source at least one art work by each artist, over the years leading to the 50th anniversary. The museum, decked with the works, was launched in the presence of a 350-strong audience and a riveting performance by T.M. Krishna earlier this week.
Never has such documentation been done in any gallery in the country, he claims. “If you go to the National Gallery of Modern Art in Delhi, you will find a piece by Laxma Goud placed beside a Mughal series,” says Nandagopal, following it up with stories of dismal maintenance of invaluable artworks at the Egmore Museum. Senathipathi, who was among the first to set up their houses here, notes that “it’s haphazard and disorganised — with a mismatch between the labels and artworks”; a problem that has been addressed in this gallery space.
The works are neatly labelled, strategically arranged, and interspersed with frames that include excerpts from an article featured in The New York Times in 1998, quotes by well-known writer Mulk Raj Anand, and a note from National Gallery of Modern Art — all praising the concept of an exclusive village for artists, a replication of which has been attempted in several parts of the country, but in vain. “This is the only village, created by artists, where artists own the land. Israel has Ein Hod Artists Village that is sponsored by the Government, and Upstate New York has a cluster of spaces that artists can use for a three-month stay, but none as ours. When we started out, popular critics such as Richard Bartholomew dismissed it as utopia,” he recalls. “If only he were alive now...,” he says with a sigh.
Once upon a casuarina grove
1944: Progressive Painters’ Association was formed by K.C.S. Panicker.
1961: The Association started Artrends , the first of its kind art magazine.
1966: The Artists’ Handicrafts Association, an offshoot of PPA, consisting of 30 artists, acquired 10 acres of land near the seashore in Injambakkam.
1998: Exposure in global media: The New York Times carries an elaborate article on the village.
2009: Cholamandal Centre for Contemporary Art opens to the public.
2017: Complete documentation of 55 artists of Madras Movement done. In a few months, Museum of Madras Movement will be featured among the 1,500 museums on the virtual platform by Google Cultural Institute.
