"Obituary" : Tribute to a Great Master : P.C.Little

"Obituary"

Tribute to a Great Master

P.C.Little

Friends,

Mr. Prakash Chandra Arya, widely known as P. C. Little (Lucknow, India), passed away on 18 January 2011 in his hometown. Mr. Little was a multifarious human being. He was a high-quality painter, proficient photo-artist, an erudite writer and a philosopher.
Born in 1937, Mr. Little had inventive taste since his early days. By his young age, he became passionate about art and in 1958 completed five years Professional Diploma in Commercial Art from Govt. College of Arts & Crafts, Lucknow. One of his teachers was so impressed by his ability that he started calling him “Little Scholar”. Henceforward the word “Little” became a sobriquet of his name.
Due to his proficiency in art, he joined Department of Commercial Art & Photography, Faculty of Fine Arts, Lucknow University as a teacher. Later on, he became the Head of the same department. He served this institute whole-heartedly and always aimed at the promotion of art. His style of expression was unique and had no parallel in the arena of art. So he was always an ideal for his students and the art lovers. During the last phase of his life, he experimented with creative art and produced theme based graphical images with the help of photographs clicked by him. For doing so, he took help of photo editing softwares like Adobe Photoshop. The output was exceptional and resulted in remarkable images.
Mr. Little organized a number of solo exhibitions of his paintings and art-photographs in highly reputed art galleries and institutions in India and abroad. His art-works have been treasured in the permanent collection of several museums.
Many of his research papers/articles on art and culture, and photography were published in reputed journals, books and magazines.
Apart from his command on fine arts, Mr. Little was a passionate collector of the rarest cameras in the history of photography. His collection includes about 400 antique cameras.
He had been a member of Executive Council, U.P State Lalit Kala Akademy (1983-86), Hon. Director of Rashtriya lalit Kala Kendra, Lucknow (1983-88) and a Member of Advisory Council, Regional Science Centre, Lucknow (1986-88). The Ministry of Culture, Govt. of India honored him with its Senior Fellowship in Visual Arts in 2007. Image Colleague Society International-USA honored him with prestigious FICS in 2009. He has a string of national and international awards to his credit.
The passing away of Mr. P. C. Little is a great loss to the realm of art and photography. The art lovers all over the world will always remember him due to his valuable contribution.
He has left behind his wife, Mrs. Asha Arya and successors, Mr. Bhupesh Chandra Little and Avinash Chandra Little (sons) and a grandson.

(Images and information courtesy: My dear friend, Mr. Bhupesh Chandra Little)

.....

--Dr. Pankaj Sharma

Mr. P.C Little With His Antique Cameras

Creative Images of Mr. P. C. Little.