When Achuthan Kudallur unexpectedly passed away in July 2022, he left two home studios stacked with luminous paintings, sensitive drawings and rare early work. Now you can see some of his most striking canvases at Ashvita Gallery’s retrospective exhibition, Achuthan Kudallur: A life in Art, on at Lalit Kala Akademi, Chennai.
The show, which features about 40 important artworks from the Achuthan Kudallur Estate, demonstrates why he was a significant force in India’s contemporary abstract art movement.
Hailing from Kudallur village in Palghat, Kerala, Achuthan’s fondest memories were of his childhood, much of it spent with his cousins and siblings, swimming in the Bharathapuzha and Kunthipuzha rivers that intersected beside his home. His memories of this idyllic phase are reflected in his work, particularly the strong greens and blues, but the exhibition also captures how dramatically his style and colour changed as he grew older.
Achuthan Kudallur: A life in Art, on display at Lalit Kala Akademi, Chennai | Photo Credit: Special Arrangement
“He was a prolific artist, and he has left a few hundred canvases,” says curator Ashvin Rajagopalan, adding, “He has left behind a body of work that starts from the 1970s.”
When the artist’s two sisters and nephews asked Ashvita to handle the Estate, Ashwin says he started studying Achuthan’s art, and how it transformed over the years. “Most artists change their style, but it is usually a fluid process. With Achuthan, he stayed with figurative work, oil on canvas in the 1970s, then did ink on paper drawings, and then in the late ‘80s, everything started to expand,” says Ashvin.
He points at vast canvases, some designed as diptychs, to demonstrate how the artist worked with large format paintings. “They were rolled and stored separately, but we are pretty sure these are meant to go together,” he says, pointing at another painting, which is accompanied by a blank canvas, to demonstrate that it was designed to be a diptych.
Pairing the paintings was just one of the many challenges of categorising the art, and putting the show together. “It literally was forensic. We first had to co-relate everything between two locations, since he lived and worked in two houses. Then, we had to correlate the time period with the paintings,” says Ashvin.
An artwork from Achuthan Kudallur: A life in Art | Photo Credit: Special Arrangement
Discussing the process, he says it was “an incredible marathon session,” adding, “We acquired the work two months ago. I moved a team of conservators from Mumbai to Chennai, and they worked non stop to restore the paintings, which were cleaned, re-stretched and reframed.”
Some of the collection will go into Ashvita’s archive. “These are the ones with unique story points, which we want to keep,” says Ashvin, adding that they also plan to start an Achuthan Kudallur archive, since his work is intertwined with the history of the Madras Art Movement.
The large and rare works from the 1970s and 1980s will only be available to institutional buyers, since they need to be preserved professionally. The others, largely from the Nineties onwards will be available for sale. “They are priced between ₹5 and ₹25 lakh, which is where his market is right now,” says Ashvin.
The artist, who was fairly private and reclusive — though he did have a close circle of good friends — created a vibrant body of work till the end, even though he always wanted to be a writer. Judging from the collection, despite continuing to cherish dreams of writing, he stacked every bit of his home with colour, unable to shake the grip of painting and his clearly prodigious artistic talent.
Achuthan Kudallur: A Life in Art is on till February 9, from 11 am to 7pm on all days at Lalit Kala Akademi on Greams Road, Egmore, Chennai.
