The Mini Masters boxed set, a popular board book collection for preschoolers in America, prompted California-based children’s author and poet Shobha Tharoor Srinivasan to think about a children’s book on Indian artists. One of the sets, she points out over an email conversation with mid-day, features the works of Degas, Van Gogh, Matisse and Monet with rhymes to accompany their famous paintings. Upon the suggestion of her publisher, however, the idea of an illustrated biography of Ravi Varma replaced that of a poetry book on the artist, and the result is Prince with a Paintbrush: The Story of Raja Ravi Varma (Red Panda), a sumptuous blend of words and images seen through the eyes of a young girl who loves to draw. “So many children I spoke to were familiar with artists in the western canon, but couldn’t recognise the paintings of well-known artists from India. Raja Ravi Varma was one of India’s most celebrated artists who blended European aesthetics with Indian imagery and connected the world more than a century ago. Yet, so few seemed to know him!  I thought there was no better time to address this lapse.”

Srinivasan’s own generation grew up with a familiarity with Varma’s works. She describes his iconic lithographs with scenes from the epics hanging on the walls of her grandmother’s tharavad in Kerala, a starting point for several storytelling sessions in the house. Varma’s pioneering craft together with his commercial acumen apparent in the way he understood the value of mass production and set up India’s first lithographic press to make art affordable to everyone, were some of the things that drew her to his work and legacy. He “…travelled the length and breadth of the country at a time when travel was not easy, and also represented various regions of the country in his art. In many ways Varma’s art is a symbol of national integration and that appealed to me”.