Just a couple of months ago one of my paintings
fetched Rs 2.50 lakhs. And I am sure within a couple of years, my work will fetch at least Rs 1 crore,’’ says a confident J Niranjan Chetty, renowned Kalamkari artist from Andhra Pradesh.

Two decades ago things were very different for folk
artists, as majority of Indians didn’t even know that such an art form existed but for grandmother tales of walls being painted with Kalamkari, Gond, Mithila, Pattachitra and Warli paintings. Folk painting had almost become a museum art. But things have changed for the better recently.

Take for instance, the case of well-known Gond artist Venkat Raman Singh Shyam, who is just back from the first foreign solo exhibition of a contemporary tribal artist presented by The Brooklyn Arts Center. Shyam is so elated about his ‘one-man show’ that even being stranded at the Vancouver airport for five days due to the volcanic ash cover, couldn’t dampen his spirits.

At the vanguard of this revival of folk art are people like Roshan Kalapesi, Laila Tyabji and others, who have made it a mission to breathe life into the dying folk arts of India by identifying and encouraging artists who were till recently living in obscurity. Organisations like Paramparik Karigar and Dastkar came into being with the sole purpose of promoting traditional crafts and educating Indians about the beauty of Indian folk arts.

J Niranjan Chetty (Kalamkari – Andhra Pradesh), Venkat Raman Singh Shyam (Gond – Madhya Pradesh), Satya Narayan Lal Karn and Moti Karn (Mithila/ Madhubani – Bihar), Dilipkumar Maharana (Pattachitra – Orissa), Jivya Soma Mashe (Warli – Maharashtra) and several hundreds of others have taken up the challenge and decided not only to make the art alive, but also popularise it.