Dr Kattingeri Krishna Hebbar (1911 to 1996) better known as K K Hebbar was a celebrated artist known for his India themed artworks. Though his paintings did not really belong to the conventional modern Indian art themes, his works won him several accolades and appreciation over the years. Paying a tribute to the artist, K K Hebbar Art Foundation and ArtMantram organised a three-day fest in the city recently.
The event opened with an art exhibition that showcased his works. The second day witnessed the screening of two documentaries on the artist.
The documentaries screened on K K Hebbar at Alliance Francaise De Bangalore included a Kannada documentary by Girish Kasaravalli and an English documentary made by the Hebbar Foundation.
The interactive session K K Hebbar: Artist and Patriarch included Chiranjiv Singh, S G Vasudev, Dr Manu Baligar, Rekha Rao (artist and daughter of K K Hebbar) and Rajini Prasanna (art historian and daughter of Hebbar).
The highlight of the third and final day of the Hebbar Festival was the presentation of the ArtMantram Achievement Awards for Women in the Arts and Letters 2012 that was held at National Gallery of Modern Art, Palace Road.
ArtMantram has been honouring women for the last few years whose achievements have been exemplary in the fields of art, music, dance and theatre.
Those who have been honoured in the past included the likes of Vani Ganapathy, Rashmi Hegde, Rekha Rao, Lalitha Ubhayakar, Poile Sengupta, Pushpa Dravid and Sara Arakkal.
This year the awardees were the renowned artist and sculptor, Anjolie Ela Menon, well known writer Shashi Deshpande and the famous Veena exponent Suma Sudhindra.
Scholarships were also presented to art students from ArtMantram and Hebbar Foundation. The awards were given to students from Karnataka as well as the rest of India.
This was followed by a dance presentation titled Jai Ho Shakti by an all male troupe by Sathyanarayana Raju, Dr Seshadri Iyengar, Srinivasan R and Mithun Shyam.