Bengal

Chintamoni Kar

About: 

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.

 

Published works: 

Classical Indian Sculpture, 300 BC to 500 (London: A Tiranti, 1950)

Indian Metal Sculpture (London: A. Tiranti, 1952)

Chintamoni Kar, with an introduction by Mulk Raj Anand (New Delhi: Lalit Kala Akademi, 1965)

Kar, Chintamoni and Mukherjee, Tinkari, A Short Guide Book. Art Section, Indian Museum, Calcutta (Calcutta, 1958)

Date of birth: 
19 Apr 1915
Connections: 
Reviews: 

The Telegraph (Calcutta), 4 October 2005 (obituary)

Secondary works: 

Windsor, Alan, British Sculptors of the Twentieth Century (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2002)

City of birth: 
Kharagpur, West Bengal
Country of birth: 
India

Location

Royal British Society of Sculptors SW7 3RA
United Kingdom
51° 29' 54.3984" N, 0° 10' 52.7412" W
Date of death: 
03 Oct 2005
Location of death: 
Kolkata, India
Dates of time spent in Britain: 

1945-56

Tags for Making Britain: 

Atul Bose

About: 

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.

Published works: 

Exhibition of Paintings and Drawings of Atul Bose (Calcutta, 1939)

Verified Perspective (Calcutta, 1944)

A Hundred Years of Painting and Politics in Bengal [in Bengali] (Calcutta: Ananda, 1976)

Date of birth: 
01 Jan 1898
Connections: 
Precise DOB unknown: 
Y
Secondary works: 

Daw, Prasanta, Atul Bose (Calcutta: Indian Society of Oriental Art, 1990)

Mitter, Partha, Art and Nationalism in Colonial India (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994)

Mitter, Partha, The Triumph of Modernism: India's Artists and the Avant-Garde, 1922-1947 (London: Reaktion, 2007)

City of birth: 
Mymensingh, Bengal
Country of birth: 
India
Date of death: 
01 Jan 1977
Precise date of death unknown: 
Y
Date of 1st arrival in Britain: 
01 Jan 1924
Precise 1st arrival date unknown: 
Y
Dates of time spent in Britain: 

1924-26, 1930

Tags for Making Britain: 

Brahmo Samaj

About: 

The Brahmo Samaj was a monotheistic sect of Hinduism. The movement began through meetings of Bengalis in Calcutta in 1828. One of the leading figures was Ram Mohun Roy. This group was known as the Brahmo Sabha. In 1831, Roy visited England as a reforming ambassador and died there in 1833. He was buried in Bristol and his funeral sermon was conducted by Lant Carpenter, a Unitarian minister.

Debendranath Tagore, the father of Rabindranath Tagore, was a key member of the Brahmo Sabha. In 1843 he was involved in the creation of the Brahmo Samaj. Keshub Chunder Sen, a disciple of Tagore, joined the Samaj in 1857 but broke away in a formal schism in 1866. This schism was called the Brahmo Samaj of India. In 1870, Sen visited Britain and met with Mary Carpenter, the daughter of Lant Carpenter. Together they founded the National Indian Association, an organization designed to promote social reform in India and provide a meeting place for Indians and British people in Britain. Sen returned to India and created a major schism in the reforming society of the Brahmo Samaj when he married his 14-year-old daughter to the Maharaja of Cooch Behar, violating the Brahmo Marriage Act.

However, the Brahmo Samaj (in its various guises) continued to flourish in India and particularly Bengal. Rabindranath Tagore's Visva Bharati University was founded in 1921 as an expression of Brahmo universalism. The influence of Ram Mohun Roy and Keshub Chunder Sen in Britain could also be seen into the twentieth century. The cemetery where Roy was buried became a pilgrimage spot for Brahmos visiting the UK and the National Indian Association convened annual remembrances on the anniversary of Sen's death.

Secondary works: 

Carpenter, Mary, The Last Days in England of Raja Rammohan Ray (London: Trubner, 1866)

Kopf, David, The Brahmo Samaj and the Shaping of the Modern Indian Mind (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1979)

Sen, Keshub Chunder, Diary in England (Calcutta: Brahmo Tract Society, 1886)

Date began: 
01 Jan 1828
Precise date began unknown: 
Y
Connections: 

Ram Mohun Roy, Debendranath Tagore (father of Rabindranath).

Tags for Making Britain: 

Ernest Binfield Havell

About: 

Havell was Principal of the Madras School of Industrial Arts from 1884 to 1892 and Principal of the Calcutta School of Art and Keeper of the Government Art Gallery from 1896 until 1906. In Calcutta, Havell worked with Abanindranath Tagore, nephew of Rabindranath Tagore, in developing a Bengal School of Art by reforming the art education at the Calcutta School of Art to gain inspiration from Mughal art rather than western methods.

In February 1910, Havell gave a lecture in London to the Royal Society of Arts on Indian Art, to which the Chair, George Birdwood, responded that India had no fine art tradition. Partly as a response to this, Havell was instrumental in founding the India Society - he convened a meeting at his house in March 1910 where the idea of the Society was concretized. The India Society was formed to bring attention to Indian Art in Britain and the West. The Society organized lectures, exhibitions and produced publications on Indian Art, including Havell's 1920 publication of a Handbook of Indian Art.

Havell was also appointed to the Indian Section Committee of the Festival of Empire held at Crystal Palace in 1911. From 1916 to 1923 Havell was a member of the British legation in Copenhagen. He died on 30 December 1934 at the Acland Nursing Home, Oxford.

Published works: 

The Industrial Development of India: Lecture (Calcutta: The Englishman, 1901) 

A Handbook to the Agra and the Taj, Sikandra, Fatehpur-Sikri and the Neighbourhood (London: Longmans & Co., 1904) 

Hand-Loom Weaving in India (Calcutta: Luxmir Bhandar, 1905)

Benares, The Sacred City:Sketches of Hindu Life and Religion (London: Blackie & Son, 1905)

Monograph on Stone-Carving in Bengal (Calcutta: Bengal Secretariat Book Depot, 1906)

Indian Sculpture and Painting Illustrated by Typical Masterpieces, with an Explanation of their Motives and Ideals (London: John Murray, 1908)

Essays on Indian Art, Industry & Education (Madras: G. A. Natesan & Co., 1910)

The Ideals of Indian Art (London: John Murray, 1911)

Eleven Plates Representing Works of Indian Sculpture (London: The India Society, 1911)

The Basis for Artistic and Industrial Revival in India (Adyar, Madras: Theosophist Office, 1912)

Indian Architecture, its Psychology, Structure, and History from the First Muhammadan Invasion to the Present Day (London: John Murray, 1913)

The Ancient and Medieval Architecture of India: A Study of Indo-Aryan Civilisation (London: J. Murray, 1915)

The History of Aryan Rule in India from the Earliest Times to the Death of Akbar (London: G. G. Harrap & Co., 1918)

A Handbook of Indian Art (London: John Murray, 1920)

The Himalayas in Indian Art (London: John Murray, 1924)

A Short History of India from the Earliest Times to the Present Day (London: Macmillan, 1924)

The Art Heritage of India, Comprising 'Indian Sculpture and Painting' and 'Ideals of Indian Art' (Bombay: D. B. Taraporevala Sons & Co., 1964)

Indian Architecture Through the Ages (New Delhi: Asian Publication Services, 1978)

Date of birth: 
16 Sep 1861
Connections: 
Contributions to periodicals: 

Asiatic Review

Modern Review

The Studio

Secondary works: 

Calendars of the Grants of Probate…Made in…HM Court of Probate [England and Wales] (1935)

Coomaraswamy, Ananda K., Golubev, Vicktor, Havell, Ernest Binfield and Rodin, Francois Auguste, Sculptures Civaites. Par Auguste Rodin, Ananda Coomaraswamy, E.-B. Havell Et Victor Goloubew [Ars Asiatica. No. 3.] (Bruxelles & Paris, 1921)

Jamal, O., 'E. B. Havell: The Art and Politics of Indianness', Third Text 39 (1997), pp. 3-19  

Mitter, Partha, Art and Nationalism in Colonial India (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994)

Mitter, Partha, 'Havell, Ernest Binfield (1861-1934)', rev., Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford University Press, 2004) [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/37520]

Mitter, Partha, Much Maligned Monsters: History of European Reactions to Indian Art (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1977)

Mitter, Partha, The Triumph of Modernism: India's Artists and the Avant-Garde 1922-1947 (London: Reaktion, 2007)

Tarapor, Mahrukh Keki, ‘Art Education in Imperial India: the Indian Schools of Art’, in Kenneth Ballhatchet and David Taylor (eds) Changing South Asia (London: SOAS, 1984)

The Times (1 January 1935)

Who Was Who (1929-40)

Archive source: 

Correspondence and papers, Ms Eur. D. 736, Asian and African Studies Reading Room, British Library, St Pancras

Correspondence from Havell to William Rothenstein, Houghton Library, Harvard University

Involved in events: 
City of birth: 
Reading
Country of birth: 
England
Date of death: 
30 Dec 1934
Location of death: 
Oxford
Tags for Making Britain: 

Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy

About: 

Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy was born to Justice Sir Zahid Suhrawardy and Khujesta Akhtar Banu in Midnapur, Bengal (now West Bengal), India, on 8 September 1892. He received his early education from his mother and his uncle, Sir Abdullah al-Mamun (who had studied at Oxford University and been a founder-member of the Pan Islamic Society in London), before he entered the Calcutta Aliya Madrasah and graduated with honours in science from St. Xavier's College. He obtained an MA degree in Arabic Calcutta University in 1913 before leaving for England later that year.

In England he enrolled at Oxford University, where he graduated in science with honours and received his BCL degree. His elder (and only) brother, Hasan Shahid Suhrawardy, graduated from Oxford as well, and both were involved with the Oxford Majlis. Huseyn was called to the Bar at Gray's Inn in 1918 and returned to Calcutta in 1920 where he started practising as a barrister.

Soon after returning to India, Suhrawardy married Begum Naiz Fatima, the daughter of Sir Abdur Rahim, who was a judge of the Calcutta High Court, a member of the Governor's Executive Council and president of the Indian Legislative Assembly. Begum Naiz died in 1922. They had one son, Shahab Suhrawardy, who died in London in 1940 while pursuing his studies at Oxford, and one daughter, Akhter Jahan Suhrawardy, who married Shah Ahmed Sulaiman, the son of Sir Mohammad Sulaiman.

He joined the Swaraj Party, under the leadership of C. R. Das, in 1923 and became Deputy Mayor of Calcutta in 1924. After the death of Das, Suhrawardy turned to separatist policies and eventually joined the All India Muslim League. In 1946, Suhrawardy headed the Muslim League government, as Prime Minister, in Bengal. On 16 August 1946, mobs of Muslims attacked Hindus in their demand for a Pakistan. Suhrawardy is often held responsible for not intervening. In 1956, Iskander Mirza made Suhrawardy Prime Minister after Chaudhry Muhammad Ali had resigned. However, due to the political turmoil of Pakistan at that time, he resigned on 17 October 1957. After being disqualified from politics by Muhammad Ayub Khan, Suhrawardy relocated to Lebanon where he died in 1963.

Published works: 

Bartol'd, Vasily Vladimirovich, Mussulman Culture, translated from the Russian by Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy (Calcutta, 1934) 

World Religions: Their Contrasts and Resemblances: Islam (London, [1947])

Joint Electorate in Pakistan (Karachi: Department of Advertising, Films and Publications, [1957])

Statement on Foreign Relations and Defence (Text of the Statement made in the National Assembly by Prime Minister, Mr. H. S. Suhrawardy, on February 22 1957) (Karachi, 1957)

Winding up of Foreign Policy Debate (Text of the Speech delivered by Mr. H. S. Suhrawardy, Prime Minister of Pakistan, on 25 February 1957) (Karachi, 1957)

Nirbacita Baktrita o Patrabali (Dhaka: Akshara, 1987)

Date of birth: 
08 Sep 1892
Connections: 

Satya Ranjan Bakshi, Maulana Abdul Hamid Khan Bhashani, Muhammad Ali Bogra, Sarat Chandra Bose, Chittaranjan Das, Abul Hashim,  A. K. Fazlul Huq, Iskander Mirza, Khawaja Nazimuddin, Sir Abdur Rahim, Kiran Shankar Roy, Hasan Shahid Suhrawardy.

Secondary works: 

Chatterji, Joya, Bengal Divided: Hindu Communalism and Partition, 1932-1947 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994) 

Ikramullah, Shaista Suhrawardy, Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy: A Biography (Karachi; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991)

Kamal, Kazi Ahmed, Politicians and Inside Stories: A Glimpse Mainly into Lives of Fazlul Huq, Shaheed Shurawardy and Moulana Bhashani (Dacca: Kazi Giasuddin Ahmed, 1970)

Kha, Roedan, The British Papers: Secret and Confidential India - Pakistan - Bangladesh Documents, 1958-1969 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002)

Lyon, Peter, Conflict Between India and Pakistan: An Encyclopedia (Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 2008)

Qayyum, Abdul, Three Presidents, Three Prime Ministers (Islamabad: Dost Publications, 1996)

Talukdar, Mohammad H. R. (ed.), Memoirs of Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy, with a brief account of his life and work (Dhaka: University Press Limited, 1987)

Wolpert, Stanley, Gandhi's Passion: The Life and Legacy of Mahatma Gandhi (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001)

Involved in events: 

Direct Action Day, 16 August 1946

City of birth: 
Midnapore
Country of birth: 
India

Location

Oxford, OX2 6QD
United Kingdom
51° 47' 13.6464" N, 1° 17' 24.6012" W
Date of death: 
05 Dec 1963
Location of death: 
Lebanon
Date of 1st arrival in Britain: 
01 Jan 1913
Dates of time spent in Britain: 

1913-20 (student)

1932 (Round Table Conference)

Hasan Shahid Suhrawardy

About: 

As a student at Oxford, Hasan Shahid Suhrawardy helped Robert Bridges (poet laureate) select the 'oriental' poems for The Spirit of the Man (London: Longmans, 1915). On 29 November 1915, Suhrawardy, with D. H. Lawrence and Philip Arnold Heseltine, visited Lady Ottoline Morrell. [A photo of which, taken by Lady Ottoline, is available in the National Portrait Gallery.] Other guests recorded in the visitors' book that day included Aldous Huxley.

Suhrawardy was a poet and art critic, who also worked as a diplomat. He was the son of Justice Sir Zahid Suhrawardy and Khujesta Akhtar Banu and nephew of Abdullah Al-Mamun Suhrawardy who had also studied at Oxford. Suhrawardy was a graduate of Presidency College, Calcutta, before sailing for England. After graduating from Oxford, he taught English at the Imperial University of St Petersburg and at the Women's University in Moscow. Amongst his students was Alexander Kerensky, the Prime Minister of Russia. Suhrawardy was a member of the producers' committee at the Moscow Art Theatre and worked with the composer, Igor Stravinsky. He witnessed the Bolshevik Revolution of 1919 and then moved to France. He returned to India in the 1920s to pursue research in art, teaching in Calcutta and Hyderabad. He also translated works from Russian and Chinese into English.

His younger brother, Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy, who was at Oxford at the same time, was Prime Minister (the post now called Chief Minister) of Bengal in 1946 and Prime Minister of Pakistan, 1956-7. Due to similar sounding names and the same initials with his brother, Hasan Shahid Suhrawardy is often known as Shahid Suhrawardy. He should also not be confused with his uncle Sir Hassan Suhrawardy.

Published works: 

Faded Leaves (London: J. M. Baxter, 1910)

'Narcisse-Mallarméen; Chinoiserie: Samainesque' in Oxford Poetry 1915 (Oxford: Blackwells, 1915)

Bartold, V. V., Mussulman Culture, translated from the Russian by Shahid Suhrawardy (Calcutta: Calcutta University Press, 1934)

Essays in Verse (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1937)

Prefaces [Lectures on Art Subjects] (Calcutta: Calcutta University Press, 1938)

Lee, Hou-chu, Poems of Lee Hou-chu, rendered into English from the Chinese by Liu Yih-lung and Shahid Suhrawardy (Bombay: Orient Longmans, 1948)

'The Writer and his Freedom' in Pakistan PEN Miscellany 1, ed. by Ahmed Ali (Karachi: Kitab, 1950)

The Art of the Mussulmans in Spain (Karachi: Oxford University Press, 2005), with introduction by Naz Ikramullah Ashraf.

Example: 

Letter from D. H. Lawrence to Lady Cynthia Asquith, 5 December 1915, in George J. Zytanek and James T. Boulton (eds) The Letters of D. H. Lawrence (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981), volume II, p. 466.

Date of birth: 
24 Oct 1890
Content: 

D. H. Lawrence is describing his visit to Lady Ottoline Morrell's (on 29 November 1915) and the people he met - including Suhrawardy. In this extract, Lawrence is recounting Suhrawardy's comments about Lady Ottoline.

Connections: 

Ahmed Ali (friends and co-founders of Pakistan PEN - a writing organization), Robert Bridges, D. H. Lawrence, Philip Arnold Heseltine (aka Peter Warlock - composer and music critic), Aldous Huxley, Basanta Kumar Mallik (students at Oxford together), Lady Ottoline Morrell, Jawaharlal Nehru, Jamini Roy, Kiran Shankar Roy (students at Oxford together), Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy (his brother, who was Prime Minister of Bengal and Pakistan), Rabindranath Tagore (met when Tagore visited Oxford in 1913).

Contributions to periodicals: 

Art critic for The Statesman (Calcutta), 1940-7.

'Tagore at Oxford', The Calcutta Municipal Gazette: Tagore Memorial Special Supplement, 13 September 1941.

Extract: 

The Indian says (he is of Persian family): 'Oh, she is so like a Persian princess, it is strange - something grand, and perhaps cruel.' It is pleasant to see with all kinds of eyes, like argus. Suhrawardy was my pair of Indo-persian eyes. He is coming to Florida.

Secondary works: 

Hosain, Shahid (ed.), First Voices: Six Poets from Pakistan: Ahmed Ali, Zulfikar Ghose, Shahid Hosain, Riaz Qadir, Taufiq Rafat, Shahid Suhrawardy (Lahore: Oxford University Press, 1965)

Shamsie, Muneeza, A Dragonfly in the Sun: An Anthology of Pakistani Writing in English (Karachi: Oxford University Press, 1997)

Talukdar, Mohammad H. R. (ed.), Memoirs of Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy with a brief account of his life and work (Dhaka: Dhaka University Press, 1987)

Zytankek, George J. and Boulton, James T. (eds), The Letters of D. H. Lawrence, volume II, June 1913-Oct. 1916 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981)

Relevance: 

This extract reveals Lawrence's deep admiration for Suhrawardy and his intentions to take him to Florida with him (which did not materialize). Lawrence is keen to stress the Persian descent of Suhrawardy, but also sees Suhrawardy as an interpreter of Eastern views (Indo-persian eyes).

Archive source: 

Portrait with D. H. Lawrence and P. A. Heseltine, National Portrait Gallery, London

L/PJ/12/3, India Office file on his activities in Moscow and Europe, April 1917 - February 1935, Asian and African Studies Reading Room, British Library, St Pancras

City of birth: 
Midnapore, Bengal
Country of birth: 
India
Other names: 

Shahid Suhrawardy

Location

Oxford, OX1 3BQ
United Kingdom
51° 43' 26.2992" N, 1° 16' 30.414" W
Date of death: 
03 Mar 1965
Location of death: 
Karachi, Pakistan
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