Admirer of Paul Raj Paintings

My photo
Paul was born in Kodaikanal on 22 September 1914 and died on 2 October 1979. G D Arulraj was born in 1925 and died in June 1972 while visiting India. Arul worked at Laguna Beach in the 60's and 1970's. G D Thyagaraj might have been born in 1922 and I am told that he probably died sometime before 1981. He moved to northern India as a young man. I lived in India as a child and spent a lot of time in Calcutta. My mother purchased several paintings directly from Paul Raj while living in Madras and this got me interested in his works. I then discovered he had two brothers Arul Raj and Thyaga Raj who were both fantastic artists. I could not find much information on the internet so decided to set up my own blog. Subsequently a Facebook tribute site has also been created to the memory of the three brothers. Contact me at: rajbrothers@hotmail.co.uk

Sunday 13 January 2013

Kodaikanal Photos - Artists at Work

Robert Schramm has found two photographs he took in 1949 of two artists painting on the mountain road in Kodaikanal.  I have approached one of Paul Raj's daughters to see if they can identify the artist and it is believed that Kodaikanal Painter1.
(below) is likely to be ThyagaRaj. The hair, particularly the waves and curls, and the cheekbone line seem to fit this.  ArulRaj was in Malaya in '48 and his hair is flatter by comparison.
 

 Kodaikanal painter2 (below) is definitely not family. 
Apparently the style and skill is same of the same school suggesting he might have been a friend visiting. 
These are two great photographs showing artists at work in 1949 and what fantastic views.  I am very grateful to Robert for letting me add his photos to my blog. It is possible one of the views is of "Coaker's Walk".

2 comments:

  1. Nice photographs! I'm thinking how beautiful Kodaikanal would have been at that time! If only we could get it back to its pristine glory!

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