Artists of Mysore

DIVYAVARNA Exhibition

2011-05-19T22:03:00.000+05:30

DIVYAVARNA

an exhibition of paintings by

artist par excellence

GLN Simha

Inauguration by

Shatavadhani Dr. R. Ganesh

well known scholar and poet

Introduction of artist

Sri P.N. Rangan

well known Kannada author

Inauguration: Friday 20 May 2011. 6.30 pm

Exhibition: 21 - 29 May 2011. 10.30 am to 7.00 pm

Venue: Pratima Gallery, In front of Zoo, Mysore 570010

Puttaraju Works Ravi Varma - Inaugural Invitation

2011-01-10T21:53:00.000+05:30

Puttaraju Works Ravi Varma

Exhibition of inlays by R. Puttaraju

based on the paintings of Ravi Varma

Inauguration: Thursday, 13 January 2011. 6.30 pm

Exhibition: 14 to 23 January 2011

Venue: Pratima Gallery

1160, Ramsons House, In front of Zoo, Mysore 570010

Inlay Marquetry Artist R Puttaraju

2010-11-16T21:09:00.000+05:30

R. Puttaraju

Pioneer of relief technique in wood collage and marquetry

His inlays and portraits in wood collage inspires wonder in the mind of onlooker. His various artefacts done in relief technique in wood collage reach out to the beholder. He was the first to make human portraits in wood collage. He pioneered the relief technique which is widely popular. He is R. Puttaraju.

Born to the pious christian couple Richard and Joan Mary in Mulloor, a non-descript village near Kollegal, Puttaraju had his primary education in his village and later studied up to 10th standard at Kollegal.

Every Sunday Puttaraju went to St. Francis Assisi Church at Kollegal; here the beautiful statues of Madonna, St. Antony and Jesus Christ, and oil paintings depicting various biblical stories left an indelible impression on the mind of young lad. The Sunday classes at the church turned out to be the very first platform for his artistic talent. He was asked to draw the sketches of biblical stories to be used as illustrations during the class. These drawings caught the eye of a German priest, father Handy Kohrt, and he encouraged the lad to draw more.

Two years later Fr. Kohrt moved to Mysore's Philomena college; he pursuaded Raju's parents and made him come to Mysore in 1956. Father sent young Raju to Chamarajendra Technical Institute. 17 year old Puttaraju couldn't gain entry into the fine art course because he was younger, than the stipulated age, by one year. Wishing not to waste a year he took up the inlay certificate course, instead, which didn't mandate minimum age limit. His talent helped him to finish the 5 years' course in just four years. He was deeply impressed by his inlay teacher Latif during these four years. Still, his love for painting hadn't died down. He took up another five year diploma course in fine arts at CTI. So much was his hunger for art, that, he once again completed the course with a year to spare. He stood first in the class all four years. His teachers F.M. Soofi, Y. Subramanya Raju and the Principal M.J. Shuddodhana greatly influenced his creativity.

His passion for drawing proved to be a great gift for his acquired skill of inlay. He could perform all the tasks of inlay single handedly. Making the sketches, choosing the different coloured wood, cutting them into desired shape, scooping the rosewood plank, embedding the cut wooden pieces into those shallow pits, detailing by engraving and finally the scraping and polishing. He could do each and every aspect of inlay which usually required the skills of 6-7 persons. He was equally good at wood collage or marquetry.

All the while he was getting nostalgic about the church back home in Kollegal; its beautiful relief panels of biblical characters were etched into his mind and were tugging at his creativity. He wanted to create something new in inlay like those relief panels - two dimensional in whole but jutting out of its limiting surface, as if to reach out for the onlooker, at places. He extensively experimented with wood collage and finally in 1968 created a panel 'Submission with devotion'. This was the first ever relief work in wood collage; it fetched him the coveted first prize at the Mysore Dasara Exhibition.

Puttaraju's friend who went to Madras coaxed Puttaraju to join him. Thus Puttaraju came to Madras in 1969 and was supplying his inlay creations to Victoria Technical Institute. He worked in Madras Film industry as an assistant art director from 1972-80.

Puttaraju took up inlay work full time and set up a small workshop in Madras with 8-10 assistants. He has trained nearly 60 students, among whom many were Mysoreans. Some 7 students of his have got State awards. In 1993 Puttaraju returned to Mysore and in 1995 he married Philomena who was working as a teacher; she hailed from the neighbouring village of his native.

Puttaraju pioneered the relief technique in wood collage which is now widely popular. He has done inlay of coloured stones on marble stone slab. He has perfected the technique of portraits in inlay. He is very good at sketching, drawing and painting. During his student days he was known in the friend circle as the portrait specialist.

In 2003 a person took all of Puttaraju's works promising to pay handsomely but he neither paid not returned the artefacts. His house at Tilaknagar, workshop and a thriving business of inlay handicrafts, everything was lost during that financial crisis. Now Puttaraju lives in a rented house and along with his wife and three assistants is limping back to normalcy.

In 1980 the selection committee for National award rejected the entry of Puttaraju's 'Mother and Child' panel. Disappointed by the rejection Puttaraju never applied for the award again.

When he was away at Madras he got an invitation from Chicago which was sent to St. Philomena's hostel at Mysore. The invitation was from the NRI, who had bought his first relief work at Dasara Exhibition, to come to Chicago and teach his technique there. He got that invitation a year and a half too late.

The life of Sri R. Puttaraju has been paved with thorns at regular intervals. Disappointments, missed opportunities and financial losses have bogged him down time and again. But a strong spirit to survive has helped him to reinvent himself in the face of adversities. Every time he was left in the lurch his talent and creativity have got him sail through.

Puttaraju was honoured with Rotary Ramsons Kala Pratishtana Award in June 2005. In 2008 he received the coveted Rajyotsava Award honours from the state government of Karnataka.

Book - artists in mysore

2010-01-22T16:05:00.000+05:30

Artists in Mysore is a book authored by Naramani Somanath. As the title suggests the author has written on twenty-three artists of Mysore. The Majority of the artists featured are painters in various styles while a few marquetry artists, an avantgarde non-narrative film maker, two poets, a photographer and an architect are also featured. The author explores the respective art practised by each artist and also touches upon the various social and cultural aspects in relation to the artist, there by giving a commentary on their artistic lives without being categorical.

The selection of the artists is not deliberate but rather a random choice, says the author in his introduction. The book begins withK.S. Shreehari. Even though there are many artists painting in Mysore style, the author refers to Shreehari as being the last of our traditional Mysore school painters because he has learned the art in the same old traditional way from his father and grand-father as they did from their’s. The author disapproves other ways of learning this art which is mere copying.

Mysore is quite well-known for its marquetry tradition which is derived from the Italian renaissance. So the author has deemed it fit to include three artists who pratice this art. V.M. Sholapurkar, the former Dean of CAVA deals with marquetry in the sense of ‘modern art’. K. Mohan of Mandi Mohalla has been trained under the traditional masters of inlay and his pictorial marquetry is quite appealing to the author. Eric Sakellaropoulos, a greek, hails from Canada. He has set up a workshop in Mysore and producing marquetry pieces. He is almost renewing the aesthetic of pattern marquetry with his designs.

Vishnudas Ramdas and Raghuttama Putty, both senior artists are the pride of Mysore. Ramdas is an acclaimed portrait artist who has designed more than 35 gardens across India. His contribution to the horticultural architecture remains unknown for us Mysoreans. And as for Putty, he is the oldest living artist of Mysore who still paints at the ripe age of 92. He recently exhibited his landscapes on his 91st birthday.

Girija Madhavan brings a remarkable Japanese sensitivity to her work. She learned under many people around the world and each of her paintings is a masterpiece of vision, skill and sensitivity. Her mother,Mukta Venkatesh, wiled away her hundred years on the flowers of Mysore. Our city still has what must surely be the most beautiful flowering trees in the world. Mukta used to draw and paint flowers as a detailed study.

Two artists of Srilanka who have now adopted Mysore as their home are also featured in this book.Druvinka attended Shantiniketan and fell for the charms of Mysore which rarely stirs up any emotion in we Mysoreans. She paints in several layers of different colours, one upon the other, until the painting looks greyish with hints of colours, underneath, peeping through here and there. Her brother, Shehan Madawela who is residing here since 11 years, is inspired by the local women, the flowers, the food and the light. The faces in his paintings are stark and haunting.

G.L.N. Simha is an artist on his terms. He should be happy with his painting first before anyone else sees it or else the painting never sees the daylight again. The author understands the training tradition Simha has gone through and has made a brief study of this in the article.

M. Nagaraja Sharma is an archaeologist and a photographer. Along with him, the Venezuelan poetRowena Hill and the wellknown poet Mudnakudu Chinnaswamy are featured in the book.

N. Sjoman, is an artist with a sense of humour and a Sanskrit scholar. A Canadian national, he is in love with Mysore for the past three decades. His works are personal statements and take a dig at the existing double standards in the society. He is a writer himself and has co-authored the book ‘Yoga Touchstone’ along with H.V. Dattatreya.

The only architect to be featured in the book, Shashi Bhooshan brought a new aesthetic to the otherwise languishing building architecture of Mysore which once boasted of lovingly built beautiful houses, buildings and palaces.

Though trained in a traditional idiom, Raghupati Bhatta has explored outside the tradition and has been successful in creating tiny worlds within the stifling spaces of narrow cards. Deft strokes of colours transform magically into forms and figures. One of his Visvarupa paintings grace the cover of the book.

N.S. Harsha is a rising star on the horizon of ‘modern art’ and Mysoreans hardly take stock of his creativity. He derives his aesthetics from Mysore, its creatures and contents. A student of CAVA, his paintings and installations are sought after around the globe.

Sami Vaningen is a contemporary art film maker who keeps returning to Mysore, the city where he grew up. Among his 15 films few were shot in Mysore. Another former Dean of CAVA to be featured in this book is Ramdas Adyanthaya. He paints from his experiences in life rather than from academic training.

Babu Eshwar Prasad is articulate about his art. You can read about him in his own words in the book. The article on Penpa Yaasel opens a whole new canvas of Tibetan thangkas. It also juxtaposes the two worlds of Tibetans - their life within Tibet and the other, without.

Pinki hails from the land of Madhubani and Mithila paintings. Her paintings are a mirror to her ecstasy during her creative trance. She is an artist for art’s sake and her art spills out of the canvas into her immediate physical world.

This book is a very informative one on artists in Mysore and a pleasure to read. It opens up a whole new perspective on an undisclosed world in Mysore. Every now and then Mysore, sort of, peeps out from the book and shows a stark fact about itself which the reader cannot ignore. It is as if a single thread of Mysore’s contemporary story is told through the lives of twenty-three artists. It’s like watching a TV with Picture-in-Picture facility - you are watching a channel, you switch on a small window in a corner of the monitor and take a peek at another channel as well. And when the reader finally turns the last page he yearns for more of Mysore and more artists.

One thing that the book really awakens, a regular Mysorean, to is the fact that there are so many artists enchanted with the city’s charm. They are unseen and unheard of. They remain in the background and work like shadows lurking in the dark deep recesses of the city.

In the beginning the reader may feel a little uncomfortable with the style of Naramani. He at times seems to wander off somewhere which is unconnected with the immediate context but when he returns to the original narrative the reader is surprised when that ‘stray-off’ blends so perfectly with the original context giving it a whole new meaning.

The book contains a picture of the work of each artist and at the back, there is a CD with additional pictures on it. Like this the reader can have a broad view of the work at a relatively low cost. This book, published by the Black Lotus Books Inc., Calgary, Canada, is a snapshot of arts of Mysore in the year 2006.

Catalogue Front Cover

2010-01-12T20:34:00.001+05:30

Catalogue 1 - 12

2010-01-12T20:30:00.003+05:30

Catalogue 13 - 24

2010-01-12T20:26:00.003+05:30

Catalogue 25 - 36

2010-01-12T20:23:00.004+05:30

Catalogue 37 - 48

2010-01-12T20:18:00.003+05:30

Catalogue 49 - 60

2010-01-12T20:12:00.005+05:30

Catalogue 61 - 72

2010-01-12T20:07:00.004+05:30

Catalogue 73 - 84

2010-01-12T20:04:00.004+05:30

Catalogue 85 - 96

2010-01-12T20:00:00.004+05:30

Catalogue 97-108

2010-01-12T19:53:00.005+05:30

Catalogue 109-120

2010-01-12T19:41:00.003+05:30

Catalogue Back Cover

2010-01-12T19:39:00.002+05:30

Returning Paintings

2010-01-09T22:14:00.002+05:30

At last I have finished the job in Bangalore. Right now, I am blogging from Hotel Bangalore Gate at Bangalore. I finished returning all paintings which we had borrowed for the exhibition 'Mysore Masters'. It is a huge responsibility to take care of the paintings since it belongs to others. If even one is not handled properly the repurcussions are very grave.

First, the paintings are old, some of them are not even framed properly. Second, the artists are not alive, hence if a painting gets damaged or misplaced, there is no way of getting a new one done.

In fact I got cold feet just before leaving for Bangalore yesterday. Gyani stayed back at Mysore and this created panic in me. Suddenly, I felt the task was too huge and I doubted whether I am capable of pulling it through. Thankfully Srikanth was there to help me out by being with me. Thanks, Srikanth. And a huge thanks to all private collectors and family members of artists for having faith in us (Ramsons Kala Pratishtana) and lending us their invaluable paintings for the exhibition. All of you are wonderful and great. Thanks a ton to all of you.

A View inside the Gallery

2010-01-05T14:23:00.002+05:30

Shall we take a peek into Pratima Gallery where the exhibition 'Mysore Masters' was on till 3 Jan 2010. Enjoy.

Deccan Herald

2010-01-05T14:22:00.000+05:30

Saluting artists of yore

2010-01-04T15:54:00.003+05:30

Following article was written by Ambika Nagaraj which got published on 25 December 2009 Times Of India, Mysore Edition.

Though we often get to hear people speak of the creative works of dexterous artists from the past, it is seldom that we get to see their inventive creations. But here's a rare chance for Mysoreans to see some of the best of artworks by the bygone Mysore-based artists, who lived between 1840 and 2009. With some of the best of collections by the deft artists on display, this 10-day expo sure seems a delight to the connoisseurs of fine arts.

Organized by Ramsons Kala Pratisthana in association with INTACH, Mysore chapter at the Pratisthana's Pratima Gallery in the city is Mysore Masters - an exhibition of paintings by the bygone artistes of Mysore. The expo that showcases over 140 rare and enticing artworks has put on display the works of over 56 artists, as a tribute to them for having augmented the cultural scene of the city through their skills.

This expo has been organized as part of an event called Amruta Kala Uthsava 2009-10," says Kala Pratisthana designer Raghu, "on account of which we plan to host a variety of art-related shows and workshops throughout this year. This is the first event that has been organized as part of the year-long uthsava. "We decided upon hosting this as a tribute to the great artists who lived in our city."

Some of the artists whose works are on display at the expo are: Iyengar S R, Tankasale S G, Javagal Narasimhaiah, K S Siddhalingaswamy, Keshavayya K, Raghuttama Putty, Lalitha R Putty, Mukta Venkatesh, Murthy PVK, Soofi F M and Sreeroopa S Madhav.

The exhibition includes paintings, pencil sketches, drawings, modern art, threat works, paper arts and line drawings and paintings of a variety of forms such as Mysore style, oil paintings, water colours and oil on photographs.

The exhibition will be on between 10.30 am and 7 pm daily and concludes on January 3.

A Surprise Visit

2010-01-02T15:30:00.002+05:30

The gallery was closed due to a 'bundh' couple of days ago and I went there a little late in the morning to work in the office. Who do I see at the door, looking puzzled and disappointed, are none other than two brilliant bureaucrats of Karnatka who are well known for being art patrons - Ms. Jija Harisingh and Mr. Chiranjeev Singh.

They had drove down all the way from Bangalore to see the exhibition but were disappointed to find the door closed. I dashed out and ushered them in from a private door into the gallery. Both officers were mighty pleased to see the exhibition and stayed on for more than an hour.

Exhibition Inauguration

2009-12-31T15:56:00.005+05:30

The exhibition 'Mysore Masters' was inaugurated by His Holiness Jagadguru Sri Shivaratrishwara Deshikendra Mahaswamigalu, the pontiff of Suttur Mutt, on 23 December 2009, 5.00 pm at Pratima Gallery, Mysore. Prof. M.H. Krishnaiah, Chairman, Karnataka Sahitya Academy was the Chief Guest and Sri Krishna Vattam, Convener, INTACH, Mysore Chapter was the Guest of Honour. Following are the pictures from the inauguration.

L-R: Sri D. Ram Singh, Chairman, Ramsons Kala Pratishtana, Sri Krishna Vattam, Prof. M.H. Krishnaiah, H.H. Deshikendra Swamiji and Sri R.G. Singh, Secretary, Ramsons Kala Pratishtana.

L-R: Sri D. Ram Singh, Chairman, Sri Krishna Vattam, H.H. Deshikendra Swamiji, Prof. M.H. Krishnaiah, and Sri M.B. Singh, Executive Trustee, Ramsons Kala Pratishtana.

L-R: Sri R.G. Singh, Dr. C.R. Dileep Kumar and Sri Raghu Dharmendra

Lighting the lamp.

Inauguration of the exhibition

Prof. M.H. Krishnaiah speaking about the art and artists whose artworks are displayed at the exhibition.

Release of the catalog of the exhibition

Sri Krishna Vattam addressing the gathering

Brochure and Invitation

2009-12-24T16:01:00.003+05:30

Mysore Masters

2009-12-01T19:58:00.003+05:30

The exhibition has been rechristened as 'Mysore Masters' in English and as 'Mysoorina Amara Kalavidaru' in Kannada. The exhibition is scheduled between

23 December 2009 to 3 January 2010

Following is the poster of the exhibition

Why This Blog?

2009-08-08T21:26:00.000+05:30

We (myself and R.G. Singh) are coming up with an exhibition (under the aegis of Ramsons Kala Pratishtana) of paintings of artists who enriched the visual artscape of our beloved city - Mysore. As the first step we have planned an exhibition of veterans who have become 'one with the elements' and called it tentatively as 'Homage to Masters' in English and 'Kalabhivandana' in Kannada.

We started listing the names of artists who either were born, lived or worked for a few precious years of their lives in Mysore. At first the names were hard to come by but as we started interacting with senior artists and refering few books and booklets published by Karnataka Lalita Kala Academy (KLKA), the list grew longer over time.

Brief information what we procured was precious, no doubt, but were either partial or had little mistakes which could not be taken for granted. Glaring mistakes had crept up even in authorised books. When I tried to look up the internet for information, I hit a road block. There is virtually nil information about the great artists of Mysore. 'Pathetic' was the only word I could conjure in my mind.

This is the reason for this blog. As the Kannada phrase goes, this is our 'Alilu Seve' (humble service) to the maverick artists of Mysore. Read on and if you find any additions, deletions or mistakes do let us know. Thank you for dropping by. Leave your valuable comments.