Untitled

This is an early watercolour version of the bright, colourful oils of Telangana men and women that have now become signature of the Hyderabad-based Thota Vaikuntam. His portraits are an ode to the sturdiness, virility, and sexuality of the people of his native land, one of whose members is shown talking to a parrot in this work. Vaikuntam’s followers would notice a distinct difference in the face of this portrait, from that in his later oils; with the evolution of his vocabulary, Vaikuntam arrived at a more dramatically delineated visage that soon became a staple of all his oil portraits.