The Progressives owe it to the Jews

History serves up the strangest of connections: cause-and-effect ripples usually go on for a long time. Who would have thought that the rise of Nazism and the persecution of Jews in Europe would have fostered and nurtured an art movement of sorts thousands of miles away in Bombay, in the 1940s?

In fact, it is well nigh impossible to imagine that the big-ticket names synonymous with Modern Indian art (MF Husain, FN Souza, SH Raza, Tyeb Mehta and others) might not have evolved the way they did and the speed with which they did had it not been for three Europeans of Jewish extraction who sought refuge in India during the dark days of Hitler’s campaign to exterminate Jews.

These thoughts occurred to me when I read about the Sotheby’s auction in New York on Wednesday of the Emmanuel Schlesinger Collection consisting of early works of Raza, Husain, Souza, Tyeb Mehta, Ara, Bendre, Gade, Mohan Samant and others. An early Tyeb Mehta (1949), shown as part of his first solo show, brought down the hammer at $566,500, while Husain’s Tribal Girl fetched $86,000 and the paintings of Ara, Mohan Samant and Palsikar crossed the threshold of the high estimates.

Born in Zemlin, Yugoslavia in 1896, Schlesinger moved to Vienna, where he befriended many artists, including Oskar Kokoshka and Egon Schiele: his collection of over a thousand works included paintings of these artists. Life was culturally enriching for the young Schlesinger until the shadow of Nazism forced him to flee Austria in 1939.

He managed to get on to a P&O ship. He was headed for Shanghai but when the ocean liner docked in Bombay he decided, on a whim, to disembark. Fascinated by Buddhism and
Hinduism, he wanted to explore the temples of the South.

The outbreak of World War II put an end to his travels in high culture, just as he was approaching Mysore. The British government began to arrest foreigners from the Axis power countries.Schlesinger was sent to an internment camp in Ahmednagar.

A turning point in his life, Schlesinger, decided to stay on after he was released from the internment. He soon became involved in the art of the Bombay, the city he was to make his home until his death in 1968.  

The other two European émigrés who also settled down in Bombay and, like Schlesinger, had such a decisive role to play in the Indian art scene of the mid-20th century were Rudy Van Leyden, Walter Langhammer and his wife, Kathe.

All three were ardent supporters of the Progressive Artists Group. Led by FN Souza, the group initially consisted of Souza, Raza and Ara. It expanded in 1947 to include Husain, Gade and Bakre. These artists wanted to reject both the academic realism taught in the art schools in India as well as what they considered
revivalist art of the Bengal School.

Sundays were open house in the Nepean Sea road home of the Langhammers (he was a painter and art teacher and Leyden a critic) where artists could view and discuss black and white reproductions of the works of European painters. Raza was even offered space in their home to use as a studio. 

Schlesinger’s contribution went beyond being a patron and avid supporter: on his visits to Husain’s studio on Grant Road he discreetly left some money for the artist-and intermittently picked up a painting. Apparently, he also discouraged the painter from leaving India, as Raza and Souza had done.

Among the more striking testaments left behind by the European Jews are the murals of Stefan Norblin, the Jewish painter who fled Nazi-occupied Poland and came to India. His murals, mostly scenes from Indian mythology, can be found in the Umaid Palace in Jodhpur and a few in the Morvi Palace.