Untitled, Villagers Gossiping

Born in Nizampur in Andhra Pradesh on 21 August 1940, K. Laxma Goud obtained a Diploma in painting and drawing from the Government College of Fine Arts and Architecture in Hyderabad in 1963.
Goud followed it up with a post-diploma in mural painting and printmaking from Faculty of Fine Arts, Baroda. The shift to Baroda made him sensitive to the uniqueness of his rural heritage. By the late 1960s, he had evolved a distinct style that reflected a pan-natural sexuality seen in terms of spontaneous, uninhibited passions, unfettered by the puritanical ethics of the urban middle class — he was able to embed his childhood memories and rural vivacity within an urban framework.

Erotic indulgence highlighted by the intermingling of male and female, vegetal and animal forms, along with a direct rural simplicity, charged his works with palpable sensuousness. His later works, however, are more introspective, and are executed in softer forms and colours.
A master draughtsman, Goud has excelled in a variety of mediums — watercolour, gouache, dry pastels, clay, and metal. He has exhibited widely in India and abroad; notable exhibitions include solo shows in Mumbai and Delhi at various venues, and a retrospective in 2007 in New York. His work is part of prominent collections such as the Masanori Fukuoka and Glenbarra Art Museum, Japan, and The Phillips Collection, Washington, D. C. He won the Andhra Pradesh Lalit Kala Akademi’s award in 1962 and from 1966-71, among other honours from various institutions. He lives and works in Hyderabad.