The Many Faces of S G Vasudev

There’s the multiple-award winning painter S G Vasudev who paints in his studio to the strains of classical music, there’s the Vasudev who badgers officials to set up art institutions and then there’s the Vasudev who calls up Muslim friends to apologise for the demolition of the Babri Masjid. There’s also the Vasudev born in 1941 to an orthodox Brahmin family who enjoys his whisky and paya soup.

In The Open Frame, the recently released documentary on Vasudev (directed by Chetan Shah), M S Thimmappa, former Vice Chancellor of Bangalore University, laughingly recounts how the artist chased him for years till he was in a position to sanction the opening of a visual arts department in the university. It started off in 2005 with 25 students paying Rs 1,000 as annual fees; today it has 68 students and the fees are Rs 6,000, still a fraction of what private art colleges charge. Vasudev was similarly instrumental in getting the Karnataka government to hand over an old heritage bungalow to house the National Gallery of Modern Art in Bengaluru.