Walter Crane was an Arts and Crafts designer, theorist and active socialist. His work is difficult to categorize. He made designs for wallpaper, pottery, stained glass, trades union banners; illustrated books, newspapers and magazines; wrote prolifically; and also painted. He believed in the ‘unity of the arts’ and was a founder member of the Art Workers’ Guild (founded in 1884), and was also president of the Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society from 1888 to 1893.

Crane was the first person in the audience to respond to George Birdwood’s damning comments concerning Indian art, made after E. B. Havell’s paper on 12 January 1910 at the Royal Society of Arts. Alighting on Havell’s points about the dangers of Western commercialism for the survival of traditional Indian arts and craft, Crane said that he had found a link between what certain artists in India and England were attempting to do, namely, to ‘raise the banner of the handicrafts’.

Crane and his wife had travelled to India in the winter of 1906-7, a journey he recorded in his book India Impressions. Crane noted that he and his wife had been inspired to make the trip after making the acquaintance several young Indian men in London, many of whom were called to the Bar. Crane was also a member of the India Society and sat on the Executive Committee of the Festival of Empire in 1911. He was involved with the Festival’s Indian Court committee and was appointed to the art sub-committee. Crane designed posters and other visual material for the Festival. A year after the Festival of Empire, Crane designed the front cover of a new publication, the African Times and Orient Review, edited by the Egyptian writer, actor and nationalist, Duse Mohamed.

Thomas Sturge Moore was a poet, author, playwright, wood-engraver and critic. Moore was the brother of Bloomsbury philosopher G. E. Moore. He was good friends with William Butler Yeats (introduced by Laurence Binyon in 1899).

Moore helped correct English translations of Rabindranath Tagore and Purohit Swami, and was one of the people who nominated Tagore for the Nobel Prize. Moore's wife, Marie Sturge Moore, translated Tagore's The Crescent Moon into French, which appeared in 1924 under the title La Jeune Lune. After having introduced Purohit Swami to Yeats, Moore fell out with the Swami over his work on correcting the Swami's English. When Purohit Swami offered Moore £10 as part payment for his work, Moore became offended by the sum, not expecting any payment and rather expecting a share of the royalties. Moore was also friends with the Indian artist and engraver Mukul Dey who had taught at Tagore's Santiniketan and exhibited at Wembley in 1924.

Chintamoni Kar was a renowned Indian sculptor. He first trained at Abanindranath Tagore's Oriental Art Society and learnt sculpting from Giridhari Mahapatra of Orissa and Victor Giovanelli of Italy. In 1938, Kar went to Paris to improve his sculpting technique and then to London in 1946. He was a member of the Royal Society of British Sculptors. Kar won the silver medal for sculpting at the 1948 London Olympics. Kar returned to West Bengal in 1956.

Kar was awarded the Padma Bhushan in 1972. In 2000, he was awarded France’s highest civilian honour - conferred on him by the country’s ambassdor.

J. A. Lalkaka began his artistic training at the J. J. School of Art in Bombay (Mumbai) in 1903. In 1908, he arrived in London after being sent to Europe by his grandfather Sir Navroji Vakil to complete his artistic education. Lalkaka attended the St John’s Wood and Westminster Art Schools, both seen as preparatory institutions to gain admittance to the Royal Academy Schools. He also spent some time in Paris. In 1913, Lalkaka returned to India and set up his own studio in Bombay. He painted mainly portraits which were popular with the governing elite. Lalkaka’s work was supported by Viceroys Irwin and Willingdon in particular.

In 1929, it was decided that the Viceroy’s Palace (now the Rashrapati Bhavan) in New Delhi should be decorated with paintings and an exhibition was held of 1,500 works of art by 200 artists. Edwin Lutyens, the architect, in consultation with the Viceroy chose Lalkaka from this exhibition, along with Atul Bose, to travel to England to paint royal portraits. Lalkaka’s portrait of George V was particularly prized. He returned to India in 1931 and was honoured by a reception given by the Art Society of India. He was closely associated with the J.J. School of Art and became the first Indian to be appointed its Vice-President in 1931. His work can now be found in galleries in Delhi and Mumbai.

Atul Bose was a portrait painter from Bengal. Bose studied at the Jubilee Academy in Calcutta and then at the government art school, and began his career as a penniless artist doing sundry artistic jobs in Bengal. Bose's Bengal Tiger, a sketch of the educationist Asutosh Mukherjee, earned him a scholarship to the Royal Academy in London. The sketch was used by The Times Literary Supplement in their obituary of Mukherjee in 1924 (30 May 1924).

Bose spent two years, 1924-6, at the Royal Academy. He was heavily influenced there by the post-impressionist Walter Sickert. He refused an invitation to help decorate the pavilion at the British Empire Exhibition in 1924 with Mukul Dey. Upon his return to India, Bose taught at the government art school in Calcutta. However, he became unhappy there with the appointment of Mukul Dey in 1928. In 1929, the Government of India announced an all-India competition to produce copies of the royal portraits at Windsor Castle for the Viceroy's new residence in New Delhi. The architect Edwin Lutyens chose Bose and J. A. Lalkaka for this prize and they went to England in 1930. Lutyens even asked Bose to draw his likeness.

Bose became Principal of the Calcutta art school in 1945, a position he kept for two years. Partha Mitter believes that Bose's lasting achievement was his involvement with the (Indian) Academy of Fine Arts. In 1939, Bose had his first retrospective in Calcutta, which was reviewed favourably by Shahid Suhrawardy.

Christiana Powell married Wilmot Herringham in 1880. Her father had been, among other occupations, an art collector. Herringham was also interested in art, an interest that was encouraged by her husband. In 1906 the Herringhams toured India and saw the Ajanta caves in Hyderabad, which contained damaged wall paintings of the life and times of Buddha.

In 1910, Herringham became involved in the promotion of Indian Art in the UK through her friendship with William Rothenstein. Ernest Havell and Rothenstein formed the India Society and Herringham joined the committee. She was the only female committee member at the time. The Society would often meet at her home at 40 Wimpole Street in London. Her husband became Chair of the India Society committee in 1914.

Following the formation of the Society, Herringham returned to the Ajanta caves with Rothenstein. She set up a camp with the help of the Nizam of Hyderabad, and with several artists set about copying the frescoes. It should also be noted that Herringham was a committed suffragette. In 1914, she returned to the UK but was beset by ill health until her death in Sussex in 1929.

Thomas Arnold was an Orientalist scholar and administrator. From 1888 to 1898, Arnold taught philosophy at the Muhammad Anglo-Oriental College in Aligarh. His contemporaries were Theodore Morison (chair of the report into scholarships for Indians to study technical subjects in the UK in 1913) and Theodore Beck, the Principal of MAO college.

In 1898, Arnold joined the Indian Educational Service and taught philosophy at Government College, Lahore, where he had a profound influence upon the poet-philosopher Mohammad Iqbal. Arnold returned to London in 1904. He worked as assistant librarian at the India Office, and taught Arabic at University College, London.

In 1892, Arnold married the niece of Theodore Beck. Theodore Beck's sister, Emma Josephine Beck, was Honorary Secretary of the National Indian Association from 1905 to 1932. In 1910, when the NIA's offices were housed in 21 Cromwell Road, so were the offices of the Bureau of Information for Indian Students for whom Arnold acted as educational advisor to Indian students (1909-12). Arnold was also involved in the formation of the India Society in 1910. In 1920, he retired from the India Office and was appointed as the first holder of the School of Oriental Studies' (founded in 1917) chair of Arabic and Islamic studies.