Return of the Native

us. These Elmhirst collections of Gurudev’s paintings are priceless treasures of Indian culture,we request you to take measures to bring back these paintings to India.” Incidentally,this is also the year of Tagore’s 150th birth anniversary which fell on May 9. The PM has issued a statement: “This is a legal issue and will take time to sort out.”

The works were gifted to the Elmhirsts in 1939 and hence,rightfully belong to them. But intellectuals are quick to point out that a few years ago,the Indian government had cited the Antiquity Act of 1906 to get back works by Raja Ravi Varma that had been listed in a Bowrings auction. The Act,made by the US Congress,however,pertains only to artwork that are more than 100 years old and considered as national treasures. Intellectuals like art historian Tapati Guha Tirthankar and Sushobhan Adhikary,curator,Kala Bhavana,Visva-Bharati,are debating the importance of Tagore’s works and whether the Antiquity Laws should be amended to help India retain more of its precious artwork. “Instead of 100 years,the Act should be amended to 50 years,” Bhattacharjee says in the letter.

“These works represent the period when Tagore’s art attained maturity. He first started doodling in his manuscripts around 1923-24,when he was already in his 60s,” says Adhikary. “Over the next 17 years,Tagore made 2,500 paintings,including some charcoal drawings that were done a couple of weeks before he died.” Around 1,600 paintings are at Kala Bhavana. Guha says,“It’s only proper for an artwork of this importance to return to its motherland.” Sotheby’s has said it would go ahead with its auction. “Both Sotheby’s and Dartington would be delighted if the works were acquired by an Indian institution and returned to India as they are certainly of museum quality,” says Helen Collier,press representative of Sotheby’s. The Elmhirsts were close friends of Tagore,whom they met in 1920 in the US. Leonard even travelled to India to work as Tagore’s personal secretary in Santiniketan in 1921. “The Dartington Hall Trust has had these work for 71 years but been unable to display these due to space limitations. They are now keen for them to be enjoyed and seen by a much wider audience. The proceeds from the sale will be invested in the Trust’s plans for the estate including a new arts space… and building a retirement community,” elaborates Collier.

The works in the Sotheby’s auction feature an untitled portrait of a woman,a landscape in shades of green,and a canvas with figures in sepia. The works were made in the 1930s,considered Tagore’s prime period. Debashish Banerji,a cultural theorist and great grandson of Abanindranath,brother of Rabindranath Tagore,says that the Tagores were not appreciated for their art: “We suffer from a hangover of the Colonialist reading of art,so there has always been a preference for a more masculine brand of nationalism. The work of the Tagores was branded as sentimental and revivalist and much of it lies in disrepair in boxes stored at Rabindra Bharati—some of these works will never see the light of day.”

Adhikary seconds this view. In the late 1920s Rabindranath had featured and printed some of his art in a magazine in Kolkata. It drew sharp reactions,with some critics dismissing them as “bogus”. Tagore,was highly influenced by German Expressionists as well as the Post-Impressionists and Cubists in France and admired artists like Wassily Kandinsky and Amedeo Modigliani. His art was vastly different from the Bengal school,especially in its use of colour; he felt it would not be appreciated at home. “Tagore packed 400 of his paintings in a suitcase and went to Europe. His first public exhibition,organised by Victoria Ocampo,an Argentine intellectual,was held in Paris in 1930,” says Adhikary.

Most of the revenue from the sale of his paintings went towards funding Visva-Bharati. In fact,his first exhibition in India was held at the Town Hall in Calcutta in December 1931,on the occasion of his 70th birthday. If the Indian government wants his work back,they may have to bid like everyone else.