GANDHIS AND BULLS, MURALS AND DOORKNOBS A Peek inside India’s Presidential Collections Rebecca M. Brown | March 28, 2017
Viceroy’s House, now Rashtrapati Bhavan (President’s House) architect: Edwin Lutyens (1869–1944) Sobha Singh (1890–1978), father of Khushwant Singh, one of the main contractors
Secretariat Buildings architect: Herbert Baker (1862–1946)
Timeline 1911 George V announces that the capital of British India would be moved from Calcutta to New Delhi 1929–31 Construction of Viceroy’s House 1931 Inauguration of New Delhi as capital 1931 First Viceroy to take residence: Lord Irwin 1947 India’s independence from British rule, Partition of India and Pakistan 1947 First Governor General of India: Chakravarti Rajagopalachari 1950 First President: Rajendra Prasad
Terms chhatri: pavilion jali: stone screen
Aritsts
Earlier Colonial Commissioned Post-1947 Thomas Hickey J.A. Lalkaka N.S. Subbakrishna Thomas Brigstocke Atul Bose G.R. Santosh William Daniell Biren De William Hodges George Frampton Alexandr Gerasimov Rosamund Ridley Sukumar Bose Oliver Hall Syed Ahmed S. Thakur Singh
Glyn Philpot Tilottama Basu Vivian Forbes M.F. Husain Sir J.J. School of Art Paritosh Sen W.E. Gladstone Solomon M.V. Dhurandhar
e: [email protected] Arts & Interiors Volume Mitter, Partha, Naman P. Ahuja, eds. The Arts and Interiors of Rashtrapati Bhavan: Lutyens and Beyond. New Delhi: Publications Division, Government of India, 2016. (available via Amazon India, and also through AbeBooks.com)
Further Reading Gibson, Robin. Glyn Philpot, 1884-1937: Edwardian Aesthete to Thirties Modernist. London: National Portrait Gallery, 1986.
Hodges, William, Geoff Quilley, and John Bonehill. William Hodges 1744-1797: The Art of Exploration. New Haven: Yale University Press for the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, 2004.
Mitter, Partha. The Triumph of Modernism: India's Artists and the Avant-Garde, 1922-47. London: Reaktion Books, 2007.
Nath, Aman. Dome over India: Rashtrapati Bhavan. Mumbai: India Book House, 2002. (available through searching bookfinder.com)
Ramaswamy, Sumathi, ed. Barefoot Across the Nation: M. F. Husain and the Idea of India. New York: Routledge, 2015.
Ridley, Jane. Edwin Lutyens: His Life, His Wife, His Work. London: Pimlico Publishers, 2003.
Film coming to the US later this year Viceroy’s House (Gurinder Chadha, 2016), starring Gillian Anderson and Hugh Bonneville (as Lady and Lord Mountbatten), Manish Dayal (of 100 Foot Journey), Huma Qureshi, and Om Puri. Filmed in Jodhpur at the Umaid Bhawan Palace.