City’s famed art institution celebrates silver jubilee

COIMBATORE: A city-based entrepreneur built the space to showcase paintings done by his artist wife who hailed from England. Over the years, the Kasthuri Sreenivasan Art Gallery and Textile Museum at Avinashi Road in Coimbatore has evolved to become the city’s foremost institution that promotes contemporary art and emerging artists. As its founder trustees Kasthuri Sreenivasan and Barbara Sreenivasan cared a lot for paintings and sketches, the gallery turned a favourite of artists from across the country.The space was given free and artists were free to keep whatever proceeds they got from the sales at the shows.
“Artists across the country are astonished whenever I tell them about the gallery which allows exhibitions free of cost and the beautiful minds who established it,’’ recalls Jeeva Nanthan, one among the many artists and art lovers who had gathered at Kasthuri Sreenivasan Trust building on Saturday evening to celebrate the silver jubilee of the gallery.
Though Sreenivasan died in 1991 and his wife Barbara in 2005, the gallery continues to attract artists and appreciators by facilitating exhibitions free of cost. According to D Sarath Chandran, present managing trustee, the gallery has conducted 108 exhibitions so far. The gallery has a permanent display of 500 paintings and prints from all over the world and there is a special section for the works of Barbara. The textile museum has many antique textile machinery, models and drawings. As per the statistics available with the trust, over 1.60 lakh art appreciators have visited the gallery and museum over the years. Apart from paintings, the trust promotes literature by instituting Thirumathi Rangammal Prize named after Sreenivasan’s mother for the best Tamil novel published in India. “The cash prize is Rs 25,000 and 75% of the amount goes to the writer and the remaining 25% to the publisher,’’ said Sarath.
Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan chairman B K Krishnaraj Vanavarayar turned emotional when he went down the memory lane recalling his close association with the Sreenivasans. He described Sreenivasan as a multi-talented personality who valued artists and writers. Vanavarayar narrated the courage of Sreenivasan to resign from the manager’s post in the family-owned Kasthuri Mills to become the first director of South Indian Textile Research Association (SITRA) and to promote textile research in the region. Vanavarayar also mentioned the key positions he held in Bokaro Steel Plant, Reserve Bank of India and National Textile Corporation. A poet and novelist, he had authored books in English and Tamil apart from penning a set of books on management and productivity. He won many recognitions including Padmabhushan. Sreenivasan met Barbara during one of his trips abroad and their friendship evolved into marriage. According to gallery manager K M Kuppuraj, an exhibition of leading 30 artists from western Tamil Nadu is being held in the gallery to mark the occasion.