The establishment of the British art schools in India however changed the scenario. Madras Art College was started in 1850 as a private initiative and soon it became a British undertaking. It was the first British art school in India where the father of Modern Kerala art, K.C.S.Panicker studied under the illustrious principal and sculptor, Debi Prasad Roy Chowdhury. When Panicker became the Principal of the Government College of Arts and Crafts, many art students from Kerala went there to pursue their education in fine arts. The rich crop harvested there under Panicker were names like M. V. Devan, Namboothiri, T. K. Padmini, V. Viswanathan, K. V. Haridasan, P. Gopinath, Kanai Kunhiraman and so on. Followed by the staff illustrator in Mathrubhoomi, A. S. Nair, M. V. Devan and Namboothiri revolutionized the visual culture of Kerala through their illustrations. In the meanwhile, B.Madhava Menon who had taken a different route to Santiniketan brought in a totally serene art style through his nature depictions. T.K.Padmini, though it took many years for the people to recognize her relevance in Kerala’s visual art scene, made her first attempts to establish a ‘female visual language’ before her early death in 1969. In the same year, Kanai Kunhiraman, who came after studying under Reg Butler at the Slade School of Art, came back to Kerala to do his ‘Yakshi’ in Malampuzha, Palakkad and started a different visual discourse in sculpture in Kerala.
