I reach 20 minutes early for my interview with art icon RB Bhaskaran. The 80-year-old artist, however, is 30 minutes early. “Ah,” he says, standing up with a smile, “Right on time.”
An influential teacher, former principal of the prestigious Government College of Fine Arts, former principal of the College of Art, Kumbakonam, and ex-chairman of Lalit Kala Akademi Delhi, Bhaskaran spent the last six decades bringing academic rigour and creative technique to the Madras Art Movement. Still an active mentor to the Indian art fraternity, he continues to emphasise the importance of discipline, structure and constant reinvention, on canvas and in life.
Which could explain why the launch of his biography, Navigating Culture Through Formal Aesthetics – S ix Decades of RB Bhaskaran’s Journey by Ashrafi S Bhagat, is being held at the DOT School of Design, at Ambattur Industrial Estate, instead of a popular city gallery, which would have been a more conventional choice. To accompany the launch, about 60 of the artists’ paintings, from his personal collection punctuate the college’s gallery walls with colour.
