T. K. Padmini

Who was T. K. Padmini?

T. K. Padmini was a painter from Kerala, India.

Born in Kadancheri, a small village off Ponani, a coastal town of Kerala, Padmini was a strong feminine presence in the history of painting in Kerala. She had her education at A. V. High School, Ponani. She had a brief course of training from K. L. Devassi, the arts teacher of A. V. High School, and K. M. Vasudevan Namboodiri, the well known painter, sculptor and illustrator.

She joined the College of Fine Arts and Crafts at Chennai in 1961 under the guidance of Principal K. C. S. Paniker. She had worked in Madras Vidyodaya Girls High School, Adarsh Vidyalaya Matriculation School and Children's Garden School, as teacher. In May 1968, she married her co-student and well-known painter K. Damodaran.

Padmini won several awards for her work, including the Madras State Lalit Kala Academy 1963 Highly Commended certificate for the painting ‘Growth’, Madras State Lalit Kala Academy 1967 Award for ‘Dreamland’, Madras State Lalit Kala Academy 1967 Award for ‘Dawn’, A.Y.P.S. 1965 Award for ‘Women’.

Padmini died in childbirth due to complications in delivery.

86 paintings of Padmini have been displayed at the Durbar Hall Gallery of Kerala Lalithakala Akademi in Kochi and a few drawings have been kept in the archives of the Akademi in Thrissur. Padmini’s paintings are also displayed in the collection of the National Gallery of Modern Art, Madras, Salar Jung Museum, Hyderabad apart from private collections in India and abroad. A few paintings and drawings.