Kanayi Kunhiraman

Kanayi Kunhiraman

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Category: Art

Kanayi Kunhiraman Profile

  • Name:
  • Kanayi Kunhiraman
  • Born:
  • July 25, 1937

Kanayi Kunhiraman Biography

Kanayi Kunhiraman is a very famous sculptor from Kasaragod, Kerala. His sculptures of Yakshi at Malampuzha, Palakkad, Shanku and landscaping at Veli Lake and its tourist village, Jalakanyaka (Mermaid) at Shankumugham Beach, Mukkola Perumal at Kochi and Mother and Child at Payyambalam made him a world famous sculptor. He was the first artist to introduce sculptures in tourist destinations of Kerala, Yakshi at Malampuzha being the first. Though the nude sculpturing of ladies have invited a lot of controversies and oppositions from different groups, beauty of such sculptures have been praised by viewers, including tourists a lot. He has received numerous honours in his life including Govt. of India Cultural Scholarship to study Sculpture at Govt. College of Arts and Crafts, Madras, Raja Ravi Varma award by the Government of Kerala and Commonwealth Scholarship to study Sculpture at the Slade School of Fine Art, University of London.

 

Kanayi was born on 25 July 1937 at Kuttamath in Kasaragod District. His schooling was done at Kuttamath and Puthalott schools. He passed SSLC from Neeleswaram Rajas High School. His high school teacher at Neeleswaram, Krishnan Kutty was the person who identified the real talent of Kanayi. This teacher encouraged him a lot. He was interested in drawing and painting though he didn’t get encouragement from family. Though born in a financially sound family, his childhood days were spent in sorrows and miseries as his father left the family. He used to go to paddy fields in his childhood days to work. During this time, he used to make sculptures from clay of paddy fields. Thus born the great sculptor, Kanayi! He ran away from home when he was strongly opposed by the joint family.

 

Later he began his career as a painter who used to draw paintings and cut outs of political leaders. In 1956, a turning point happened in his life. The then Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru was going by train to Mangalore. The train was stopped at Cheruvathur station for half an hour to fill water. Nehru happened to watch a huge cut out of himself placed in the railway station near a shop. Impressed by it, he got out of the train and went near it. He enquired about the artist behind this creation and the next day, newspapers gave big importance to this news and when the photo of Nehru looking at his own photograph appeared in newspaper pages, Kanayi became instantly popular.

 

Though all appreciated him, his father didn’t it. In response to it, he went to Chennai to study more about this art. He learnt under K.C.S Panikker from Cholamandalam and it was through Panikker, he got the assignment of Malappuzha when government decided to renovate the tourist village. It took a long period for him to draw the sketch of ‘Yakshi’. This picture was drawn in his mind, when he spent time in the hills of Malampuzha and the rest in just history!

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Updated: April 03, 2014

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