PRINTMAKING AND PROFESSIONALISM IN EARLY TWENTIETH CENTURY BENGAL by Adrienne J. Fast B.A., University of Victoria, 1999 M.A., School of Oriental and African Studies, 2000 A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY in The Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies (Art History and Theory) THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA (Vancouver) June 2015 © Adrienne J. Fast, 2015 Abstract The early twentieth century in Bengal was a time of great social transformation, when many new ways of being and making a living in the world became suddenly possible and negotiable. Amongst the new livelihoods finding expression in that time and place was the figure of the modern, urban, professional Bengali printmaking artist, one who combined professional artistic training and certification with a determination to carve out spaces of economic and social opportunity for himself, often very difficult circumstances. Most artists struggled to forge successful careers at this time, but those who were engaged with print and printmaking media were able to take advantage of unique opportunities and were faced with particular challenges. Each chapter of this thesis deals with particular images and objects, certain institutions and texts, in order to trace the modern, professional Bengali printmaking artist through the contested spaces of a rapidly professionalizing art world that was itself emerging and transforming in Bengal, particularly in the urban centre of Calcutta from roughly the 1920s to the 1940s. By looking closely at how the relationships between individualism and collectivity, and between village India and modern urban agglomerations, were represented and negotiated in and through print and printmaking media during this period, this thesis also complicates our understanding of how these twinned issues were connected to the experience of modernity and modern art in South Asia. Finally, this thesis addresses the Bengal Famine of 1943, its representation in the art of the period, and how its cataclysmic circumstances were a context in which the issues and themes discussed throughout this project manifest in particularly urgent ways. ii Preface Sections of both chapters one and two are based on papers delivered at the Association for Asian Studies annual conference (Hawaii, March 2011) and at the University Art Association of Canada (Ottawa, October 2011). A preliminary version of chapter three was presented at the International Congress of Bengal Studies (Delhi, March 2010) and was published in the resulting conference proceedings, published from Calcutta in 2011. A version of chapter four was presented at the Annual Conference on South Asia in Madison, Wisconsin (October 2014). There is no universally accepted system for the transliteration of Bengali into English, so I have endeavoured to follow as closely as possible the standards adopted by the language institute of the American Institute of India Studies in Kolkata, where I pursued my Bengali studies in 2010. However in some cases (especially with regards to proper names) where there is a commonly accepted spelling that differs from this standard, I have maintained the commonly used spelling. Hence the use of “Tagore” instead of “Thakur,” and “Dey” instead of “De,” for example. When referring to present-day events or institutions I use the spelling Kolkata to refer to the capital of Bengal, which changed its name from Calcutta in 2001. When referring to colonial period events or institutions, I refer to the city as Calcutta. iii Table of Contents Abstract................................................................................................................................ii Preface.................................................................................................................................iii Table of Contents...............................................................................................................iv List of Figures ....................................................................................................................vi Acknowledgements ............................................................................................................xi Dedication.........................................................................................................................xiii 1. Introduction....................................................................................................................1 1.1 Professional Artists in Late Colonial Bengal ...........................................................1 1.2 The Moment Before: Academic Realism and the Bengal School ........................14 1.3 Shifting the Focus ....................................................................................................29 1.4 The Fine Art Exhibition as Differentiated Utility..................................................35 1.4.1 Awkward and Empty Display.................................................................36 1.5 Print as Exhibitionary Alternative...........................................................................42 1.6 Narrative Outline of Chapters .................................................................................49 2. Artists’ Books of Prints................................................................................................53 2.1 Introduction .............................................................................................................53 2.2 The Objects of Analysis ...........................................................................................55 2.2.1 Call of the Himalayas .............................................................................61 2.2.2 Bengal Village in Wood Engraving........................................................69 2.3 Designed to Succeed..................................................................................................73 2.3.1 Price and Audience..................................................................................73 2.3.2 The Successful Translation of Print ........................................................82 2.3.3 Direct Advertising...................................................................................84 2.3.4 Between Battala and the Drawing-Room................................................87 2.3.5 Making Use of the Status of Literature..................................................93 2.4 The Rural and the Urban ........................................................................................98 2.4.1 The Tribal Trope: Images of Santals....................................................102 2.4.2 The No-Space of the Rural...................................................................108 2.5 Conclusion...............................................................................................................111 iv 3: Print and the Individual.............................................................................................113 3.1 From the Village to the Self ...................................................................................113 3.2 The Discourse of Individualism and Collectivity in South Asia..........................114 3.3 Individual Genres: Biography and Portraiture ...................................................120 3.4 The Artist as Individual: Mukul Chandra Dey....................................................125 3.5 Mukul Dey and Autobiography ............................................................................133 3.5.1 My Pilgrimages to Ajanta and Bagh......................................................136 3.5.2 My Reminiscences and Amar Katha.....................................................143 3. 6 Portraits and the Individual in South Asia..........................................................148 3.6.1 Twelve Portraits (1917).......................................................................152 3.6.2. 20 Portraits (1943)...............................................................................159 3.6.3 Portraits of Gandhi (1948)....................................................................161 3.7 A Methodological Shift .........................................................................................162 4: The Famine..................................................................................................................167 4.1 Constellation, Rupture, Aporia...........................................................................................167 4.2 A Brief History of the Famine................................................................................171 4.3 The Invisible Famine...............................................................................................186 4.3.1 The Modern Review and its Public.....................................................198 4.4 The Famine in Representation ...............................................................................209 4.4.1 Chittaprosad’s Famine.........................................................................215 5. Conclusion...................................................................................................................229 Figures..............................................................................................................................237 Bibliography....................................................................................................................267 Appendix A: Original