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THE SUNDAY READ www.mumbaimirror.com/city MumbaiMirror SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 9, 2012 14 PICTURES: THE ESTATE OF RICHARD BARTHOLOMEW. ALL RIGHT RESERVED. Reema.Gehi suggests that Richard had no @timesgroup.com favourites. He was particularly fond of work put out by Ram lmost 27 years since Kumar, Satish Gujral, MF artist, photographer Husain, Kanwal Krishna, Sailoz and acclaimed art critic Mukherjee, Jeram Patel, A Richard Bartholomew Ramachandran, and Jagmohan A passed away in tragic Chopra. And it is they who ben- circumstances in 1985, his pho- efited most from his writings. tographer-son, Pablo In the name One of the most engaging Bartholomew has compiled a chapters in the book — Politics voluminous book on his work of Art — discusses his battle focussing on art criticism from with the state policy in Delhi 1950 to ’80s. during his tenure as secretary of In a revealing afterword of Lalit Kala Akademi. “I think he the Richard Bartholomew: The Art fought for the artists, the budg- Critic, the 56-year-old Pablo ets, and the kind of shows that recounts, “A stroke took him, at he put together for exhibitions an official meeting at the home of the father abroad. And of course, see that of the head of the arts’ organisa- Photographer Pablo Bartholomew’s book on his father, acclaimed the Triennale happened on tion he served then. Those time,” says Pablo. “There was around him thought it better to no blemish on my father’s let him lie and rest and not take art critic Richard Bartholomew, is an attempt to exorcise ghosts name, but it killed him.” him to hospital. So he lay there He admits that he was unconscious without medical always more concerned about attention and was brought that haunt him. Mirror gets a first look his father’s photography. home hours later in that unex- plained state…” After slipping into coma for 10 days, Richard left his body. A I don’t think my year after his death in 1985, Pablo put together an exhibi- father launched any tion of his father’s Indian and American street photography, in careers. However, he Delhi and Mumbai, as a tribute of some sort. “It was my way to was instrumental in deal with him,” he says over the phone from his Delhi residence. explaining to the Three years on, Pablo tried to make peace with Richard, a man artists what they with whom he shared an infor- mal relationship. “He was an were doing. When easy guy. I was the difficult one,” he adds. Difficult as he may be, Pablo went on to they went wrong, he explore the North Eastern region of India, trying to find wasn’t easy on them traces of his father — once a young Burmese boy displaced Perhaps, that’s why he chose to by the Second World War, who document his Richard’s exhaus- walked into India to escape the tive pictures in a coffee table Japanese. “It became a ten-year book — A Critic’s Eye — in 2009, project which temporarily filled while his recent edition was an emotional void, but never waiting to be tackled. “But this really answered enough,” he is the more important one,” he reflects. says. “It has history, it is a stan- Somewhere, Pablo knew it dard in writing. It is a bench- was imperative that he put mark on how and what criti- Richard’s writings out. Yet, it cism should be. I think it will be took a decade for the family to an important landmark in reconcile. “My mother edited decades to come.” the book, but she was not ready But on a personal level, as he to commit entirely to it, which admits in his afterword, it “is to slowed down the process,” he appease the ancestral spirits, says. “Then, like my father, she exorcise many ghosts that too suffered a stroke. The proj- haunt me and make peace with ect was on hold, till I took it his past that shadows mine.” upon myself.” It took three years to find the visual material, and put the one- A PAGE FROM kilo book together. “Not all of RICHARD’S COPY OF my father’s writings were in one MACBETH MAKES THE place. Newspapers and journals COVER, AND FEATURES across several libraries had to be INTENSE SCRIBBLINGS (CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT) MF Husain, Viswanadhan searched, which took time,” he THAT THE FAMILY HAS and Madhu Jain at the Third Indian Triennale, 1975 points out. After a publisher FAILED TO DECIPHER Pablo says he was always more interested in Richard’s who sat on the project for four photography. Seen here in a picture dated 1960 years backed out, he decided to MF Husain and Ram Kumar publish the book himself in Jehangir and Shirin Sabavala talk to Biren De and GR association with The Raza Santosh at Shridharani Gallery, 1970 Foundation. A formal launch is Tyeb Mehta and Rati Bartholomew at Shridharani slated for September 26 in New Delhi. In many ways, this compila- them repeatedly, so that you can careers. However, he was instrumen- several pieces in the book that tion of Richard’s incisive writing track and map their journeys.” tal in explaining to the artists what reprimand some artists, and in backed with subtext makes a Since Richard was an artist him- they were doing. When they went subsequent reviews, he appreci- readable history of modern self, he knew the craft intrinsically, wrong, he wasn’t easy on them. But ates the direction that they Indian art, and addresses issues could write as a practitioner, and elu- when they turned out something have taken. “So it was never of art and the state. In Pablo’s cidate complex ideas eloquently and good, he appreciated their work and about showering idle praise, words, “It talks about the giants simply. Yet, Pablo, believes, “I don’t contextualised it.” nor was it just negative writ- of modern Indian art; some of think my father launched any For instance, he says, there are ing,” he explains. This no way.

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