Artists of Kovilpatti
If you had missed the exhibition of popular calendar art at the Vajra Art Gallery at Dakshinachitra titled, ‘Kovilpatti: The town that papered India’, held during November 2023, try not to miss it next time. It was not a huge collection though.....should be less than 50 pieces. Having travelled quite a distance just to savour the artwork, I have to admit that I was disappointed by the size of the collection....nevertheless, the pieces on display was a visual treat to say the least, thanks to the effort of researcher Stephen Inglis for having curated the show.
The artists whose works were on display, settled in a small town in Tamilnadu called Kovilpatti (famous for ‘kadalai mittai’- a local candy made from peanuts and jaggery) and the most famous among them was C.Kondiah Raju. It was under his mentorship that his students T.S.Subbiah, T.S.Arunachalam, S. Meenakshisundaram, Mu. Ramalingam, S. Sreenivasan and G.Shenbagaraman churned out fantastic creations depicting the cultural heritage of southern India. While Raja Ravi Verma was also famous for paintings of Gods and goddesses, Kondiah Raju and his students concentrated on South Indian deities like Murugan and his consorts.
The history behind these artists is interesting. These artists were originally painting backdrops( both interior and exterior) for drama companies, but when the drama companies slowly began to die, they turned to painting pictures of deities and soon found a huge market in the nearby Sivakasi (yes....the place famous for matches, fireworks and printing industry) where retail stores selling anything from sweets to snuff started to distribute calendars to their customers for which the printing industry had to depend on the works of these artists.
As a kid, whenever I accompanied my parents for shopping in our locality, I remember having seen works of these artists on calendars adorning the walls of some hotel or a provision store....and the pictures of the deities we had in our pooja room, were by Mu Ramalingam.
And here are some of the artworks....
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