These art students painted 256 tiles from Mahatma Gandhi's schooldays in Rajkot!

Students of MS University and Sheth CN College of Fine Arts used original terracotta tiles, probably touched by Gandhi himself, as canvases to paint for this exhibition to mark Bapu’s 150th birth anniversary.   

Students from two of Gujarat’s oldest and largest art schools, Sheth CN College of Fine Arts and MS University, participated in creating 256 paintings using oil, acrylic and water colours on tiles. According to sources, these tiles were brought from scrap dealers by Rajkot-based art curator and collector Ghanshyam Ghadvi a few years back, and now he is bestowing them to various institutions and painters to create an archive of paintings themed on Mahatma Gandhi. The nearly 150-year-old tiles were formerly part of the Lang library situated near Alfred High School in Rajkot, where Gandhi studied for approximately seven years.

Ratilal Kansodaria, the Principal of the ‘Shantiniketan of West India’, the Sheth CN College of Fine Arts, explained, “The creative initiative is part of Gandhi’s 150th birth anniversary celebration and is an effort to make students reminisce on the life and values of Bapu.” The exhibition, which was located in a gigantic hallway at the institution until Oct 3, also hosted 350 Gandhi themed paintings, which were also created by painters from MSU and CNV.