P. V. JANAKIRAM | HEAD OF CHRIST

Acquired from Sarala Art Centre, Madras, 1974

Thence by descent

During the early 1950s, P. V. Janakiram studied at the Government College of Arts and Crafts in Chennai, India’s oldest art institution. During his Fine Arts education, Janakiram specialised in sculpture and was taught by K. C. S. Paniker and S. Dhanapal. His teachers were pioneering forces in the Madras Art Movement, a group that emerged in the 1960s and sought a regional artistic modernity. Janakiram joined this group of visionary artists, becoming a notable member. The sculptor’s modernist impulses merged with traditional influences, namely the sculptures of South India, to create his distinct visual idiom. Using beaten sheet metal and the metalwork technique of repoussé, Janakiram crafted his perfectly formed frontal sculptures. The current lot is one such example, made all the more interesting by the head of a woman visible on the reverse.