The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance.
-Aristotle.
It's not everyday that we come across eminent personalities like Dr.B.A.Reddy who are benevolent, successful, skilled at their art and above all have a great lot of immaterial achievements to their name...
And I happen to be one such lucky person who accidentally, but fortunately got an opportunity to spend a few of my childhood years with him. Born in 1940, at Pammuru, krishna district, he graduated from the Agra University and obtained a Diploma in Arts Course from the Government of Andhra Pradesh. He has won several awards for his paintings and graphics from places all over the World...A few of his paintings adorn the walls of the same room of the Salarjung Museum as those of Ravi Varma, M.F.Hussain and other eminent artists...
For him his art was an outright medium of expression- coarse and brutal. He used it as his tool to combat his helplessness and frustrations against the many social inequalities, atrocities against women and the social injustice everywhere.Most of his works depicted the human misery so unsettling and disturbing that they became his trademark and on many occasions his paintings were compared to that of Kathe Kollwitz...
His painting 'Of Serfdom' and many others are characteristic of his involvement with children- the influence of their cheerfulness on one side and his limitations to move away from being a socially conscious individual,unable to come to terms with the social atrocities of life on the other...A major part of his life has been dedicated to the closest thing to his heart- the world of children and his passion to work with them.
Today, he's the President and Founder of the 25 year old art institution: "YOUNG ENVOYS INTERNATIONAL"; an institution which is recognized as one of the best institutions of the World at most of the Global Child Art events. Apart from this the establishment of "Sanskriti", the Rural Art Centre for Children at Hyderguda village in the year 1993 was a major step which revolutionized the lives and ways of thinking of hundreds of children...thus putting India's name onto the World map in the field of art...
Dr.Reddy writes "Fifty two years have gone by working with children, of that 25 with the village kids"; and further adds that they are the most wonderful years of his life. It is at the "Sanskriti" that the children of potters, carpenters, labourers and masons come together every holiday and Sundays to explore their creativity, most often making a global mark;the children regularly win prizes from Japan, Korea, Finland, Hungary, Poland, Skopje, Slovakia, Russia, Macedonia, Bulgaria, Rome and several other nations.
"In recognition of his work in the field of children's art, Reddy has been awarded the Soviet Land Nehru Award, `The Order of Smile', from Poland. The National Award for teachers, Diplomas of Honor from several countries and several heads of countries. A recipient of numerous awards as an artist and an art educator, including the Junior and Senior Fellowships of the Government of India, B. Appi Reddy who learnt painting, doing little jobs for his teacher in lieu of the fees he could not pay, is most happiest working with colours and in the company of his rural children at `Sanskriti' where art is not treated as a commodity but as the purest form of expression."
- The Hindu
Today most of his students have successfully chosen their paths in life and are working as artists, architects, designers, pedagogues and engineers...And if all this inexpressible happiness in watching his wards progress in life isn't the greatest achievement of the art pedagogue, then nothing else is...
