Art history: What was the work of the Madras Progressive Painters’ Association like?

In 1944, the Progressive Painters’ Association in Madras was founded by artist KCS Paniker who ensured that skilled as well as young postgraduate artists would be included. It became a space for nurturing modern art where the young learned from seniors, and exchanged ideas and ideals. M Senathipathi is the oldest living member, and the current president of the Cholamandal Artists’ Village, which merged with the Progressive Painters’ Association.

Gradually, the Madras Art Movement blossomed with good energy and dedication amongst its members which lured young generations into their fold. Key artists from the initial association are M Senathipati, MV Devan, KV Haridasan, J Sultan Ali, Velu Viswanadhan, L Munuswamy (of whom little is known), SG Vasudev, and P Gopinath.

In 1966, with the founding of the Cholamandal Artists’ Village by Paniker and a few other artists, the largest artists’ commune in India was seeded outside the erstwhile Madras. It evolved into a self-sufficient space where artists crafted handicrafts for a living while creating their art. By the 1970s, the village grew into one of the most significant places for international artists to convene in India.

Today, the village is vibrant with art galleries, museums, and an open-air space for dance and theatre performances.

Kovalezhi Cheerampathoor Sankaran Paniker (1911-1997)

“I have been influenced throughout my artistic career by the great Indian spiritual thinkers. They explored the metaphysical and spiritual worlds, which I interpreted on my canvas.”

Born in the beautiful coastal village of Veliankode near Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu, KCS Paniker was educated in Kerala and Tamil Nadu. A child prodigy, he began painting at the early age of 12. As he sat by the village canal, the gentle music of flowing water would inspire him to paint his feelings. At 17, Paniker’s work was exhibited at the Madras Fine Arts Society’s annual show. That was also when he exited his college education to work at the Indian Telegraph Department as he lost his father, and his family needed financial support.

Walking past the Madras School of Arts and Crafts he would often see its principal Devi Prasad Roy Chowdhury working on his sculptures near the entrance. So inspired was he that he joined the centre as a student. In the years to follow, he became the principal of the college in 1957.

It was there that he met Ramabai who he got married to, and they had two children, Sumitra and Nandagopal (who was to become a sculptor). In fact, Paniker, in all his writings used the pen name Sunanda which was a combination of his children’s names.

However, before that, he was driven to not only practising but nurturing art, so he set up the Progressive Painters’ Association in Chennai, in 1944, and formed the Cholamandal Artist’s Village near Chennai in 1966.

Initially a landscape-oriented watercolourist, his praxis shifted to figures that had a particular rhythm of their own. He painted his reflections on Buddha and Christ in colours culled out from unusual shades he created on his palette. In the 60s, his figures wandered into experimentations with calligraphy. Many of Paniker’s later works appear like ancient manuscripts but on scrutiny they are a mysterious language that cannot be deciphered, almost suggesting the universality of human existence; one that is beyond the defined spaces of religions and cultures.

Paniker received the highest Lalit Kala Akademi Award for his lifetime contribution to the arts. He will be remembered for his art, his nurturing of the arts, and above all, for being a man of immense compassion.

J Sultan Ali (1920-1990)

“I regard the process of painting as meditation. At that stage, there is no difference between the painter and painting.”

Born in Bombay in 1920, J Sultan Ali has been one of the senior artists at the Cholamandal Artists’ Village. When his family shifted to Chennai in 1935, Sultan Ali, the teenager, rebelling against his father’s wish that he join the family confectionery business, escaped instead to study at the Madras College of Arts and Crafts. Meanwhile, philosopher J. Krishnamurti had a profound impact on him and his engagement with children through art at the Rishi Valley School in Andhra Pradesh.

His earlier works were painted with oils influenced by the Bengal School and the European method of painting. However, from 1959-63, while working at the Lalit Kala Akademi, he encountered a book by British-Indian anthropologist Verrier Elwin who inspired him with the free minds of tribal artists who were not influenced by any given form or style and practised art as it emerged naturally from their minds and souls.

In fact, many of his ink drawings were attributed to mythologies and folklore that grew into his mind and his art. He has also created a script that seems to be a metaphor for the past.

The artist had twenty-one solo shows and participated in the Sao Paolo, Venice, and Lugano Biennales and the Lalit Kala Akademi’s Triennales at New Delhi, among other exhibitions. He won the Akademi’s National Award twice, in 1966 and 1978. His work is represented at the National Gallery of Modern Art, the Berlin Museum of Indian Art, and the Royal Tropical Museum in the Netherlands, in addition to numerous private and public collections.

J Sultan Ali passed away in 1990 and will be remembered for his unique interpretation of tribal art.

KV Haridasan (1937-2014)

“Tantra, at its best, is a practical approach to a spiritually-oriented vision. This creates an art of pure vision, fields of colour, rhythm and harmony in forms which were not there on the surface levels of nature. They reveal a visionary abstract reality.”

KV Haridasan, known as an important Tantric painter, was born in Keechari, a village in the Cannanore district of Kerala. He had an interest in art since childhood, along with literature and an understanding of traditional values.

He earned his Diploma in painting from the College of Arts and Crafts, Chennai, and was a member of the Cholamandal Artists’ Village from 1965 to 2013. While he was the editor of Art Trends magazine from 1979 to 1985, Haridasan was also a professor and principal of the College of Fine Arts, Kerala, between 1980 and 1992.

In 1994, Haridasan was nominated as the Eminent Artist at Lalit Kala Akademi, New Delhi. A significant artist of the Neo-Tantra movement that had emerged in the contemporary art situation in India, his series of “Brahmasutra” were exhibited widely in India and internationally, bringing him well-earned fame.

About the Tantra form of painting, he has described it as a spiritual experience that is entwined in one’s cultural traditions, which can be found in most of India’s art, music, dance, and other cultural practices. He believed that Tantra could be expressed in the abstracted form of painting through the pure creation of colour fields, harmony and rhythm.

Haridasan won many prestigious awards, including the Raja Ravi Varma Puraskaram and Lalit Kala award, which he won for his Brahmasutra Series.

KV Haridasan passed away in 2014 at his home at Cholamandal Artists’ Village and is survived by his wife and a son.

M Senathipathi (b. 1939)

“Only if you enjoy the essence of the art, is it good. Every time you look at it, you should be able to enjoy it. More or less like food, where you have to enjoy every bite.”

Born in 1939, M Senathipathi is one of the founding members of the Cholamandal Artists’ Village. Interested in art from childhood, he reminisces on “getting a lot of thrashes” for drawing on the walls of his house. Senathipathi received his diploma in drawing and painting from the Government College of Arts and Crafts, Chennai, in 1965.

Receiving a grant in 1988, from the British Council to travel to London, France, Holland, Belgium and West Germany, his mind’s canvas grew enormously. Even as Senathipathi was drawn to Indian mythology and oral traditions of Hinduism, reflected in his works, he was also influenced by Cubism. Both these influences emerge in his work but with his own vocabulary. His colour palette is dense with feeling as are his evocative lines.

His solo exhibition has been at Sunnyvale, California, USA; Dakshinchitra for Art, Chennai (2012); Artworld, Chennai (2008 and 2006); Vinnyasa Art Gallery, Chennai, (2004); Jehangir Art Gallery, Mumbai (1992 and 1996), Cholamandal Artists’ Village, Chennai (1995); Gallerie 88, Kolkata (1993); Chola Sheraton, Chennai (1991), and many more.

Some of his group shows include Cholamandal Centre for Contemporary Art, Chennai in 2014; Confluence-Indian Contemporary Arts, New York, USA by Prakrit Art Gallery, Chennai; Gallery Time and Space Bangalore; Ramakrishna Mission Institute of Culture, Kolkata; Cholamandal Artists’ Village, Chennai in 2013; Prakrit Art Gallery, Chennai; Galerie Selective Art, Paris in 2012; Osian’s Masterpieces series at Taj Mahal Palace, Mumbai, among others.

M Senathipathi has received the Kalaichemmal Award from the Government of Tamil Nadu, 2008; a Senior Fellowship from the Government of India, 1984-85 and from Lalit Kala Akademi, Chennai, in 1981. He is the President of the Artist Handicrafts Association, Cholamandal Artists’ Village, Chennai, and a member of Lalit Kala Akademi, Chennai, besides having held several other significant positions.

M Senathipathi lives and works in Chennai.

Excerpted with permission from The Big Book of Indian Art: An Illustrated History of Indian Art from Its Origins to the Present Day, Bina Sarkar Ellias, Aleph Book Company.