About
To enable artists to live and sustain themselves by their art within a self-supporting artists' community.
Cholamandalam Artists Village, near Chennai on the East Coast Road, is one of the largest and oldest self-supporting artists' communities in India, founded in 1966 by the painter K. C. S. Paniker and a group of artists of the Madras Movement. Conceived so that artists could live and work together and sustain themselves through the sale of their art and crafts, the village became a landmark of the modern-art movement in south India, with studios, galleries and a community of resident artists, and it remains an important centre for contemporary Indian art.
Founded in 1966 by K. C. S. Paniker, principal of the Madras School of Art, and fellow artists seeking independence and self-sufficiency, Cholamandalam grew into a pioneering experiment in artist-led community living, its residents supporting themselves through art and craft. Over the decades it nurtured many important artists of the Madras Movement and beyond, and its galleries and studios made it one of the enduring institutions of modern and contemporary art in south India.
Cholamandalam Artists Village is one of the most important artist-led institutions in India, a pioneering self-supporting artists' community central to the modern-art movement of south India.
[Atlas Perspective] Profiled as an Institution with the role of Funder and operator in the visual-arts field. Cholamandalam sustains a self-supporting community of artists, connecting it to the modern and contemporary art ecosystem of south India, and to the Madras Movement.