In the mid-1960s, the artists of Madras, some of the finest hands in the country, were exploring their roots. Encouraged by two principals of Madras School of Arts and Crafts, DP Roy Chowdhury and KCS Paniker, they crafted a language of their own, which came to be known as the Madras Art Movement.

"They come under the [same] umbrella, but it's a very heterogeneous group. Each had a distinct style," says Ashrafi Bhagat, the former HOD of the fine arts department at Stella Maris College, in Chennai. "Paniker and [sculptor] S Dhanapal felt that one had to go to the regional traditions. There was a nativist ideology, which derived inspiration from the art and craft forms and looked at India's pictorial and plastic visual traditions."