27-day expo of Ramachandran's paintings from Oct 5
Kochi: Select paintings and sculptures of renowned artist A Ramachandran will be on display in his native state in October as the Kerala Lalithakala Akademi is hosting a 27-day exhibition that focuses on the octogenarians latest artworks.
The October 5-31 show, titled 'The Mahatma and the Lotus Pond, in downtown Ernakulam will feature 91 works of the master, according to a release here.
The event, coinciding with the 150th birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi, is being organized by Delhi's Vadehra Art Gallery and curated by art scholar R Siva Kumar.
The venue will be the KLA-owned Durbar Hall Gallery, which had held Ramachandran's first-ever exhibition in his state in 2013.
The artist-author, born at Attingal near Thiruvananthapuram, is a Padma Bhushan awardee living in Delhi for more than half a century, after having done his studies at Santiniketan in West Bengal.
The lotus ponds have been a recurring theme in Ramachandran's works since the mid-1980s, while the upcoming Kochi show will show the latest in that series during the past three years.
It will also feature a sculpture of Gandhi the artist did in 2016, Prof Siva Kumar of Santiniketan said.
Overall, the expo will have eight oil paintings, 56 watercolor-on-paper, 25 drawings and two sculptures.
Ramachandran, 84, did his Masters in Malayalam literature before leaving for West Bengal in 1957 to pursue art at Visva-Bharati University under masters such as Ramkinkar Baij, Nandalal Bose and Benodebehari Mukherjee.
The artist shifted to Delhi in 1964, and went on to teach at Jamia Millia Islamia in the national capital for 27 years before taking voluntary retirement.
In 2002, he was elected a Fellow at the Lalit Kala Akademi.
The next year, he was awarded the Raja Ravi Varma Puraskaram and, in 2005, conferred the country's third-highest civilian honour.
