Throughout his career, Mu. Ramalingam created more than 1400 unique designs for calendar art. His calendars became highly popular and were printed in large numbers. He thus became one of the most published painters in the calendar art history with presses like National, Coronation and, Orient churning out his prints in lakhs.   In the beginning, his work often featured stories of Muruga Purnas and local regional gods such as Meenakshi and Gandhimathi. He also depicted Palani Murugan, images of babies, and various lady portraits in his calendars.

In the second decade of his career, his focus shifted towards themes like Krishna, Diwali puja, Vinayagar (Lord Ganesha), and Baby Krishna. This change in subject matter showcased his versatility as an artist. Ramalingam initially for his works signed his guru’s name from 1956 to 1958 and joint names from 1958 to 62 and his own name from 1962 onwards.

Ramalingam’s first picture was printed for Ambal Coffee in 1953 by National Litho Press. After the demise of Kondiah Raju in early 70’s Ramalingam started his studios as Chithiraalayam and “Lakshmi pictures” after that signed his works as Chithiraalayam Mu Ramalingam.

A very notable achievement of Mu. Ramalingam was the drawing of the life history of Veerapandiya Kattabomman for the memorial erected by the Government of Tamilnadu in 1971. Veerapandiya Kattabomman was a freedom fighter who opposed the British and paid for it with his life. These pictures have since been changed, but the pencil sketches of these paintings are provided on this website.

Another son of Mu. Ramalingam, K.R. Somasundaram was also a talented artists and made his mark felt in the calendar industry. His youngest son K.R. Jayakumar took up painting as a passion especially “line drawings” and his works have been exhibited in the galleries at Chennai, Jaipur and other locations and received a very good response.