Laxma Goud

Laxma Goud completed his Diploma in Drawing and Painting from the Government College of Fine Arts and Architecture, Hyderabad, in 1963 and Post-Diploma in Mural Painting and Printmaking from the Faculty of Fine Arts, The Maharaja Sayajirao University (MSU), Baroda in 1965. His exhibitions include, ‘The Print: Matter in Matrix’, Gallery Latitude 28 at Sridharani Gallery, New Delhi (2020)’, ‘Ode to Monumental: Celebration, Visuality, Ideology’, Saffronart at Lalit Kala Akademi, New Delhi and Jehangir Art Gallery, Mumbai (2014); ‘The Naked and the Nude: The Body in Indian Modern Art’, Delhi Art Gallery, New Delhi (2013); ‘Manifestations V and VI’, Delhi Art Gallery, New Delhi (2011); ‘Modern Folk: The Folk Art Roots of the Modernist Avant-Garde’, Aicon Gallery, New York (2010); ‘Laxma Goud 40 Years: A Retrospective’, Aicon Gallery, New York (2007); ‘17th Anniversary Show’, Gallery Sanskriti, Kolkata (2007); ‘Sculptures, Bronze and Terra-cottas’, solo show, Guild Art Gallery, Mumbai (2006); ‘Recent Terracotta, Ceramic, Bronze Sculptures’, solo show, Gallery Threshold, New Delhi and Pundole Art Gallery, Mumbai (2006); ‘Back to the Future’, Gallery Espace, New Delhi (2006). Goud’s work has also been a part of the São Paulo Biennale, Brazil (1977) and ‘Indian Art Tomorrow’, Philips Collection, Washington D.C (1986) and have featured in the collection of the Masanori Fukuoka and Glenbarra Art Museum, Japan. He won numerous awards from the Lalit Kala Akademi in the Sixties and Seventies and has been a much-feted artist since. The Government of India honoured him with Padma Shri in 2016. Goud is the head of Sarojini Naidu School of Performing Art, Fine Art and Communication, University of Hyderabad. Hailing from a rural background in Andhra Pradesh, Laxma Goud’s shift to Vadodara made him sensitive to the uniqueness of his rural heritage. By the late Sixties, he had evolved a distinct style that reflected a pan-natural sexuality seen in terms of spontaneous, uninhibited passions, unfettered by the puritanical ethics of the urban
middle class. The erotic indulgence highlighted by the intermingling of male and female, vegetal and animal forms along with a direct rural simplicity charged his works with a palpable sensuousness. Drawing upon the potent energy of his rural background, Goud was able to embed those childhood memories and tribal vivacity within an urban framework. A master draughtsman, Goud pioneered the art of printmaking and painting, excelling in the handling of a variety of mediums – whether water colour, gouache, dry pastels, clay or metal. The artist lives and works in Hyderabad.