Registered with the Registrar of Newspapers for India under R.N.I 53640/91
Vol. XXXIII No. 1, April 16-30, 2023
Our Readers Write
Maniam, the artist
Subhashini Maniam’s article on her grandpa Maniam (MM, March 16, 2023) made excellent reading. I am an octogenarian. Maniam was my favourite artist right from my school days. Every stroke of Maniam was a master stroke and every piece, a masterpiece. He must be counted among masters like daVinci, Van Gogh, Picasso and nearer home, M.F. Hussain, Madhavan, Silpi and S.Rajam. However Maniam remains the most sought-after artist historically. There is a great art market in countries like the U.S, the U.K, China, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Switzerland and South Korea, But we in India seem to be less appreciative of great achievers in the field, except a few.
We have to be thankful to R. Krishnamoorthy of Kalki and T. Sadasivam for bringing up Maniam as a young artist. As correctly said, the combination of Ra Ki’s writing and Maniam’s art got so synchronised that it spelt magic among the readers of the weekly.
On Jan 2008, I met Maniam Selvan in a grand philatelic exhibition organised by India Post in Chennai. He was busy evaluating the drawings of students. I briefly mentioned to him about the influence of Maniam’s (his father’s) art work and he was much elated.
I wish potential writers attempted monographs of a galaxy of artists like Silpi, Simha, Chitralekha, Dhnanapal and D.P. Roy Chowdry from Madras School of Arts. Such a documentation will go a long way in preserving the glory of the great lives and works of great artists.
R. Soundararajan
1/46, Sivasakti nagar
Nagapattinam 611003
Reader’s appreciation
This is to felicitate you on a splendid issue of Madras Musings (March 1-15 2023) – evocative, pragmatic, and with every piece in your (well-edited) English.
With best wishes,
Gopalkrishna Gandhi
Correction
It would appear that since we are a heritage magazine, our corrections too are of a sound vintage. On a more serious note, we acknowledge an error that crept into our Issue XXXI Vol 24, April 16 to 30, 2022. The article Architects restore 180-year old church in San Thome, which was originally published in Mylapore Times, when reproduced by us in page 3 inadvertently left out the name of the author – Fabiola Jacob. Our apologies to her.
– The Editor
