Chithiraalayam Art Gallery / Museum set up by K.R. Jayakumar the youngest son of Late Mu. Ramalingam was conceived to stand as a tribute to display the works of the original group of calendar/ popular artists of Kovilpatti, who have long departed this world but continue to live on through their portrayal of Divinity. The seed for starting this gallery was first mooted by Ms. Jayabharathi, wife of K.R. Somasundaram, brother of Jayakumar and the second son of Mu. Ramalingam, who following his father’s footsteps evolved as a prolific calendar artist, with his works in demand by the printers of Sivakasi.
K.R. Somasundaram wanted to create a lasting legacy of his father’s works and the works of the Kovilpatti Artists whose leader was the legendary Kondiah Raju, a brilliant painter and teacher who nurtured the talents of his pupils.
The sons and daughters of Ramalingam fell in with the idea mooted by Jayabharathi for starting a gallery. The initial plan was to establish it at their ancestral house at Kovilpatti, but however this did not mature as the house was sold and the proceeds shared by the heirs of Ramalingam.
K.R. Jayakumar the youngest son of Ramalingam took up the mantle of starting the gallery. He started to build the art collections by sourcing it from multiple sources, such the printers of Sivakasi, the heirs of his father’s contemporaries, the purchasers of his father’s paintings etc. This was a long and arduous journey lasting more than a decade as he first had to identify the holders of the paintings, then meet and negotiate with them to acquire the paintings. This was an expensive exercise and by the dint of his efforts he was able to acquire about 200 original paintings of all the artists. When the ancestral house was sold the paintings were given to K. R. Somasundaram the elder brother of Jayakumar. When his brother learnt of Jayakumar’s desire to start a gallery he gave the paintings and the prints he had to him. Likewise all members of Jayakumar’s extended family gave the paintings and other art materials which they had to him to build the collection.
Jayakumar was helped tremendously in acquisition by S. Marieswaran one of the sons of T.S. Subbiah a member of the original group. Marieswaran collected all the information about Kondiah Raju, his style of teaching, his gurukulam and its students and shared the same with Jayakumar. Further Rengaiah Murugan an art historian wrote a number of columns in leading newspapers, social media and magazines about the Kovilpatti artists, their calendar art and created an awareness regarding this art style. The family members of the various artists contributed their mite by donating the material available with them in the form of original paintings, articles used by the Kovilpatti artists to set up this gallery.
Out of the 200 original paintings about 80 were the originals of Kondiah Raju and his students T.S. Subbiah, S. Meenakshi Sundaram, Mu. Ramalingam, M. Sreenivasan, M.C Jeganath and Parani Chittar. The balance 120 of these paintings were the originals of K. Madhavan, Mulgaonkar, Ramkumar, Indra Sharma, Yogendra Rastogi, J P Singhal, Murugakani, Rangrooph Sapor etal.
Subsequent to this acquisition , Jayakumar had stored all his collections in a room and retrieval of the paintings became a difficult task, Jayakumar wanted to exhibit a few of the paintings in the Galleries of Chennai but however the gallery owners were reluctant to exhibit the works of the calendar artists.
To overcome this problem, the seed of opening an exclusive gallery for exhibiting these paintings started germinating in his mind. As the first step, he started cataloguing these paintings and sorting them as per their creators. This was a herculean task and it took him almost two years for sorting and cataloguing them and even then it was not complete.
The next step was to restore and frame the paintings. Jayakumar enlisted the help of art restorers and completed some of the restorations. Frames to highlight the brilliant colors and textures of the painting were designed and the paintings were framed.
Once this process was complete the idea which germinated in his mind started taking shape and the establishment of a permanent gallery to exhibit these works came to the forefront. Initially he thought of setting up the gallery in his farm on the East Coast road. After careful consideration of various factors including transit times, a decision was taken to locate the gallery within the city.
The next hurdle to be crossed was for finding an appropriate location, which had the infrastructure to be converted as a gallery and also accessible easily to the visitors. The search for a suitable location took nearly a year and finally a shed which was capable of conversion to a gallery was identified in Alwarthirunagar. This location which had good public transport and easily accessible was painstakingly converted to a permanent exhibition of this art form. The total area of the gallery is around 1500 square feet with all the infrastructure to display the original paintings, photographs and the print sheets.
The originals of these works are exhibited in this gallery and one can observe the careful attention to detail, the immaculate brush strokes making one wonder whether this a photograph or a painting by an artist.
This museum is located at 2, Thiruvalluvar Salai, Alwarthirunagar, Adjacent to Aavin junction parlour and Anjappar restaurant. This gallery is open for viewing Monday to Saturday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. The contact number is +91 875644 30746,
the email id; chithiraalayam@gmail.com, website: chithiraalayam.art. The gallery is also on social media with the Facebook page as Chithiraalayam Art gallery and on Instagram
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