A Home Museum That Preserves Hundreds Of Paintings And Sculptures
The museum currently has around 600 artworks and 100 sculptures on display, which are changed every six months.
Hyderabad: The home of renowned artist Pakala Tirumala Reddy is now a museum, preserving hundreds of his paintings and sculptures.
The P.T. Reddy Art Museum features some rare art and sculpture works such as Neo tantric, Ganesha series and Vishnu Chakra.
Housed in 20 rooms, the building was designed by P.T. Reddy himself to preserve the artworks after some of them were lost or destroyed.
The museum is located on the Narayanguda main road, and is open to visitors by appointment.
His daughter Lakshmi Reddy, an artist herself, will schedule the visits, preferably in the evening and take the visitors through the galleries.
Over a period, the building turned into a space where each work charts not only an artist's journey but also the evolving narratives of Indian society, ideology, and mysticism across the 20th century.
The museum currently has around 600 artworks and 100 sculptures on display, which are changed every six months.
Each gallery has different themes such as ‘Mother and Child’, ‘Ganesh’, portraits of renowned politicians, neo-tantric works, traditional watercolours, etching, figurative Buddhist stories and still life, among others.
The museum also has the prototype of the iconic police memorial sculpture installed at Goshamahal.
Lakshmi Reddy maintains the museum, carrying forward her father's artistic legacy.
She said her two daughters also take part in the maintenance of museum.
Lakshmi Reddy said her father’s artworks from 1960 to 1965 explored distortions and abstraction inspired by nature, using bold forms, bright colours and geometric patterns.
From 1965 to 1970, he created several wooden sculptures and abstract paintings of Indian miniature art.
She said her father was known for his realistic paintings, landscapes and distinctive style of figuration, in which he often exaggerates the muscles of human figures.
The 1960s were considered one of his best periods.
She said her father's interest in spirituality and mythology also led him to explore Neo Tantric art, using geometric patterns, symbols.
His spiritual work was influenced by research on Krishna for drawing illustrations in his wife Yashoda Reddy scholarly work, she said.
Lakshmi Reddy said she plans to organise educational programs for school children to help them learn art and understand how it can be used as a means of self expression.
Pakala Tirumal Reddy, born in Karimnagar’s Annaram village, died in 1996 at the age of 81.
An alum of the J.J. School of Art, Bombay (now Mumbai), P.T. Reddy played a role in the introduction and the evolution of the modern art of Europe in India, and formed the ‘Bombay Contemporary India Artists’.
