Mumbai, Oct. 5 -- In 1972, Achutan Ramachandran Nair envisioned a modest museum, run by himself and his artist-wife Tan Chameli, as a way to fulfil a long-held dream of a life devoted to art. More than five decades later, that vision is finally being realised. On October 5, a museum showcasing Ramachandran's paintings, sculptures, and illustrations-alongside a selection of his wife's watercolours-will open to the public in Kerala's Kollam district. Housed in one of the buildings of the Sree Narayana Guru Cultural Complex, opened by the state government in 2023, the Ramachandran Museum will be run under the aegis of the Kerala Lalit Kala Akademi and will also house art works collected by the renowned artist over the years, besides some personal belongings, and a recreation of his studio. Its emblem comes from Ramachandran's 2002 oil on canvas - Song of the Simbul Tree. The works on display represent key phases of Ramachandran's long and prolific career, and comprise 12 oil paintings, including four monumental Lotus Ponds canvases. Other works include three sculptures, including one from his iconic bronze Gandhi series, original illustrations created for children's books published both nationally and internationally, and seven stamp designs commissioned by the Department of Posts (formerly the Post and Telegraph Department), including one commemorating the 50th anniversary of the 1930 Dandi March. The museum will also feature Ramachandran and Chameli's collection of Rajasthani miniatures, primarily from Nathdwara, as well as oil paintings from the Raja Ravi Varma school of Kerala. Shortly before he died in February 2024, the 89-year-old artist expressed his desire to donate a number of his works in a handwritten letter to Kerala chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan. "Around two years ago, after the third Covid-19 infection, my husband's health deteriorated. He was bedridden for a long time. His old friend, MA Baby, the general secretary of Communist Party of India (Marxist), came over for a visit and proposed a museum of his works in Kerala. That's when [Ramachandran and I] sat down and decided what body of work we should give to the museum. He told me that he would like me to donate 10 of my watercolours too, but I was not sure at first. He told me that I had been very important for his creative life, so it was necessary to have my works there too," Chameli said. Trained at Santiniketan, West Bengal, under Benodebehari Mukherjee and Nandalal Bose-who introduced him to Asian art and its aesthetics-and influenced by the sculptures of Ramkinkar Baij as well as a circle of progressive writers and musicians during his early years in Kerala, Ramachandran moved to New Delhi in 1964, where he taught at the Jamia Millia Islamia for 27 years. Professor R Siva Kumar, who has curated the collection in the upcoming museum, said Santiniketan had a profound impact on Ramachandran. "It taught him that art can have an impact on society in more subtle ways. There was more to art than powerful personal expression or social commentary." It is also where he met his future wife Chameli, whose father was eminent Chinese scholar Tan Yun-Shan who opened the department of Chinese Studies in Santiniketan at the behest of its founder Rabindranath Tagore. Tan Chameli, too, studied art and trained under masters like Mukherjee and Baij. After marrying A Ramachandran, she did not practice her own art till the early 1990s, when she took up Chinese ink and brush. She did, however, collaborate with her husband in writing and illustrating children's books published in India, Japan, Korea and England. Ramachandran was first recognised as a strong new voice in the art scene with Encounter, a 24ft wide painting depicting the human body as stark opposites -- as much meat as the Vitruvian Man -- which he completed in 1967. In the mid-1970s, he dipped into literature and mythology, and his works were like political satires in which the absurd turned surreal. He made etchings like The End of the Yadavas (1979) and Khushiyon ka Bagh (1981) inspired by writers like Sadat Hasan Manto and Anwar Sajaad, respectively. In the 1980s, his efforts to create a language "influenced by an eclectic mix of Indian traditions in painting and sculpture - figures from Ajanta murals, decorative flora from Hoysala sculptures, and the vibrant colour palette of Malwa miniatures" -- saw an early form in Yayati, which Ramachandran began in 1984. The artist once wrote that Yayati was a turning point in his work because it compelled him to incorporate elements of classical proportions and postures in his work. His Lotus Pond works -- four of which will be shown in the museum -- can be seen as the apogee of this stylistic practice. "Indeed, this move from existentialist expressionism to mythological reimagination and social satire also spanned the trajectory of several Malayalam writers of the period, including his friends G Aravindan and CN Sreekantan Nair," Siva Kumar added. This was also the period when Ramachandran turned to ceramics -- a set of nine rare experimentations will be on display at the new museum -- and even tried his hand at miniatures. Political events played an important role in Ramachandran's artistic responses. Siva Kumar said the 1984 anti-Sikh riots had a profound impact on him. "In a society where people were immune to violence, trying to fight violence with images of violence was meaningless," the curator said. The artist began his peregrinations in rural parts of India, visiting villages in Rajasthan, such as the Bhil villages like Pai and Undri, sketching residents, returning to nature to draw from life anew. In the 1990s, he began making single figure sculptures, and life-size sculptural assemblages. One such assemblage titled In Trance, which depicts a central figure modelled on himself, will be showcased at the museum. Critics have long debated whether to call Ramachandran a modernist. "He was a critical insider who interrogated modernism based on his Indian experience rather than an anti-modernist or traditionalist artist," Siva Kumar said. Ramachandran was awarded the Padma Bhushan in 2005....