Rare portraits by S M Pandit at Chaitanyamayi Art Gallery, Gulbarga

Visual treat in store for art enthusiasts Gulbarga, April 25:

Art lovers are in for a visual treat at the Chaitanyamayi Art Gallery in Gulbarga city for a week from April 24. On show will be true-to-life rare portraits by renowned painter the late S M Pandit.

The exhibition has been arranged to mark the fifth anniversary celebrations of the gallery that was established in memory of the Mother of Aurobindo Ashram in Puducherry. It was on April 24 that the Mother came to Puducherry and made it her home.

The rare paintings, which are part of a private collection, are being put up for public viewing for the first time. The works will include the true-to-life portrait of S M Pandit’s teacher B G Sathe. It also happens to be the artist’s first painting which he sketched when he was a student at the J J Art School in Mumbai. The other paintings include those of Sir M Visvesvaraya, the Mother, Sri Aurobindo, the former legislator Gangadhar Namoshi, the former chairman of the erstwhile Gulbarga City Municipal Council Neelkantrao Patil. There will be also 35 other paintings of leading businessmen and industrialists of Gulbarga district. These were sketched between 1976 and 1982.

The gallery’s founder chairman and painter A S Patil told presspersons that it was for the first time that these paintings were being exhibited. These paintings would go a long way in perfecting the art of mixing the right kind of colour and bringing the right ambience in portraits, he said. Dr Patil said that besides the breathtaking portraits of world leaders such as Saddam Hussain, Indira Gandhi and Margaret Thatcher there were also landscape and realistic paintings and those highlighting important episodes in the Ramayana, the Mahabharata, Bhagvad Gita and Shakuntalam.

S M Pandit had won several awards and the Royal Arts Academy of London has conferred a fellowship on him. Some of his rare paintings are put up at a private art gallery owned by his family members in Gulbarga city.

Artist Mohan Panchal, who has done a PhD thesis on the works of S M Pandit, will deliver a special lecture on the inaugural day and portrait painters Vijay Sindhu and M C Chetty will make on-the-spot portrait paintings on April 25 and 28. Dr Patil said that the exhibition would be open from 9 am to noon and from 5 pm to 8 pm every day from April 24 to 30.