THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: A painting depicting the dying moments of Mahatma Gandhi by a Keralite has made it to the cover of the newly released edition of the Father of the Nation’s great-grandson Tushar Arun Gandhi’s book ‘Let’s Kill Gandhi’. The painting titled ‘Death of Gandhi’ is by Tom Vattakuzhy.
Announcing this on Twitter and showing the first copy of the new edition of his book, Arun said the painting was a gift to him by the artist himself and that he would give it to the National Gandhi Museum in Delhi.
Vattakuzhy said he was honoured and happy to have his painting used as the cover of the book. “I am also glad that he will be gifting the painting to the museum where more people will be able to see it,” he said. The painting created in gouache medium portrays the final moment of Gandhi after he was shot by Nathuram Godse.
“I conceived the idea at a time when Gandhi and his ideals were being tampered with. I was emotionally charged when I started working on the painting,” he said. “A lot of work went into researching for it -- to capture the right costumes, how he was shot, the number of bullets that claimed Gandhi’s life and so on.”
According to the artist, the genre of history painting is not popular in Indian art. The artist had made 10 limited edition copies of his artwork and gifted them to museums and people in the socio-political realm. “I hadn’t taken any money for the digital reproduction. When Tushar Arun Gandhi called and told me that he was choosing it as the cover, I was elated.”
The painting released in 2019 was widely shared across India through social media. The artwork expresses the horror and etches one of the haunting images of Indian history poignantly.The artist’s paintings are known for the play of light, where the light itself becomes a part of the visual language.