Meet the last masters of Cholamandal Artists’ Village who have shaped the Madras Art Movement, and Indian art

Cholamandal Artists’ Village has been a unique commune and crucible to the Madras Art Movement. As the settlement changes, we meet the iconic artists who still live and work there

There is beauty in chaos. Veteran artist P Gopinath’s foyer says as much. His home in Chennai’s Cholamandal Artists’ Village is bright with canvases. His worktable spills over with half-empty tubes of paint, colour stained palettes, and brushes. The creative chaos is a condensed picture of Cholamandal Artists Village at its core — a 10-acre stretch by the sea that nurtured a vibrant creative community. The cradle of the iconic Madras Art Movement, from the 1950s to ‘80s.      

This story begins 56 years ago, in an open, sandy stretch of land by the sea, lined with casuarina trees. Today, it is home to a mighty banyan tree, as old as the commune itself and the people who planted it, who then worked beneath its spreading branches.

Cholamandal began in 1966 with over 30 resident artists. While, some of the pioneers still have homes here, with land prices in the areas rising rapidly, many have sold their property or moved out and the composition changes constantly. Today 40 residences are in this settlement. Only five of the original settlers remain, apart from the families of artists who have passed on.

Intrigued by the many untold stories of the pioneers, we spend a day with the last masters of the Madras Art Movement: the artists who lived and worked here from the 1960s, speak about their idyllic home, the idea of community and how Cholamandal has shaped Indian art.  

In the sixties, KCS Paniker, then principal of the Government College of Arts, advised his students to think of alternate ways to earn income through their art. “After graduation, many talented artists were lost in the crowd. There were no galleries where we could exhibit and sell. Many began to go into advertising, and painting cinema hoardings… Paniker was probably the only artist who understood our struggles,” says Gopinath, 76, current president of the Artists Handicrafts Association and one of the founding members of Cholamandal. 

Paniker inspired them by telling stories: of how, during the Second World War, art students in Madras bundled their artworks in sarees or sacks and went door to door, trying to sell them for a livelihood.

He then suggested working as a commune: an experimental and largely Eurocentric concept. He also advised the young artists to break away from looking at art as niche and upskill to work with craft. Gopinath recalls, “Modern contemporary art was not understood and was very difficult to sell. It was new to many.”