Letters

Now available in India. Forthcoming in the rest of the world in February 2025.

K. G. Subramanyan (1924–2016) played a pivotal role in shaping India’s artistic identity after Independence. Mani-da, as he was fondly called, seamlessly blended elements of modernism with folk expression in his works, spanning paintings, murals, sculptures, prints, set designs and toys. Beyond his visual artistry, his writings have laid a solid foundation for understanding the demands of art on the individual. In the year of his centenary, Seagull is proud to publish his writings in special new editions.

This collection of 17 letters were written by K. G. Subramanyan, in response to requests from ‘various quarters’ about matters ranging from the National Policy of Education to the government’s seeming preference for erecting statues of dead men and organizing grand Republic Day parades rather than for preserving the myriad threads of our cultural tradition and ensuring the survival of our Indian value system against the onslaught of a ‘Western’ lifestyle. As he writes in his preface, although he has no proof of any of his views and suggestions translating into practice, the very writing of them has been, for him, a process of thinking through a range of issues that pertain not merely to art and aesthetics but to life itself.