WALTER LANGHAMMER (1905-1977) : THE MAN WHO BROUGHT MODERN ART TO INDIA

                                     

                                         

                                                    ( With Bombay Progressives Group) 

                                         

   

WALTER   LANGHAMMER (1905-1977) : THE MAN WHO BROUGHT MODERN ART TO INDIA..

" While Walter Langhammer’s paintings are imbued with nostalgia for a lost Europe, they are also vivid with an awareness of the light of his adopted country." .......Ranjit Hoskote

                                                   ( Benares Ghaat by Walter Langhammer)

                                                         ( Still Life by Walter Langhammer )

                                                      ( Still Life by Walter Langhammer)

                                             ( Kashmir Landscape by Walter Langhammer)

                                           ( House Boats in Del Lake by Walter Langhammer)

                                            ( Portrait of S A Raza by  Walter Langhammer )

                                               ( Nashik Dhobi Ghaat by Walter Langhammer)

                                             ( Portrait of N S Bendre by Walter Langhammer)

He was the backbone of the Bombay Progressives  in India .  His contribution towards the development  of Modern Art in India is phenomenal.   He exposed the Bombay Progressives to  Impressionism, Cubism , Expressionism and other European styles. The founder members of Bombay Progressives were,  K.H. Ara, M. F. Husain, S. H. Raza and F. N. Souza with S. K Bakre, H.K Gade, Krishen Khanna and V.S. Gaitonde joining later. Their first exhibition was held in 1948.

He created a studio in their apartment and hosted salons for artists and intellectuals, introducing them to modern European art.

He  gave free access to Bombay Progressives to work in his studio in Mumbai. Entertained them with food .It was at his studio and get-togethers  that artists like Hebbar, Raiba, Ara and Husain first saw reproductions of the works of Western modernists and learned about current artistic trends in Europe. He taught them the difference between Monet, Degas, Cezanne,Renoir  Pissarro, Matisse and Manet. He had a special liking for Sayed Haider  Raza whom he took up under his total tutelage. When Raza left for Paris,  he gave him his overcoat and shoes .He drew portraits of many artists from the Bombay Progressives and Baroda Group. He did hundreds of landscapes depicting seasons and natural beauty of the country. He visited markets and joined fairs and festivals and brought them to his canvas . He visited every corner of the country. He visited Kashmir twice and did some landscapes . He fell in love with the beauty of the valley comparing it with his own country, Austria.

 He was there to inaugurate the Art exhibition of Baroda Group in Mumbai .The Baroda Group of Artists was formed in the year 1956 by G.R. Santosh, Ratan Parimoo, K.G. Subramanyan, Prabha Dongre, Shanti Dave, K. Patel, Triloke Kaul, Vinay Trivedi, N.S. Bendre, Balkrishna Patel, Jyoti Bhatt, Prafull Dave, and Ramesh Pandya. Every artist from this group has paid glowing tributes to this master and his contribution. Unfortunately , the man who brought Modern Art to India remains by and large unknown in India. Yes ,I am talking about Walter Langhammer( 1905-1977).

Langhammer was an Austrian painter, born in Graz in 1905. He studied at the Academy of Fine Arts, Vienna and married Kathe Urbach, who came from a Jewish family . Walter Langhammer  took refuge in  India just before the Second World War broke out to escape the Nazis in Austria. 

 An art student at the time *Oskar Kokoschka was teaching at the Viennese Academy, Langhammer had made friends with an Indian student, Shirin Vimadalal, who subsequently returned to India. After he wrote to her, she managed to persuade Sir Francis Low, editor of the Times of India, to appoint Langhammer first art director of the paper in about 1936. Arriving in India with his wife, Langhammer set up open house at his studio on Nepean Sea Road, and the young Indian artists who were to develop into the great names of the Indian Progressive Art movement would meet there on Sundays to hear his tales of the European art scene. Exhibiting regularly himself at the Bombay Art Society, Langhammer was soon surrounded by an 'in crowd' of fellow European Jewish refugees - professionals, artists, doctors and industrialists - who became important art patrons and accelerated the Progressive Movement.In India,  Langhammer was equally impressed by  the Bengal school, miniature paintings and  Indian sculpture. 

 Along with fellow emigres Rudolf von Leyden and Emanuel Schlesinger, Langhammer advised, critiqued and encouraged young artists in India, writing about their work and very often buying it to support them financially as well. His own paintings, vivid expressionistic portraits, landscapes and Indian pastoral scenes, were exhibited on several occasions at the Bombay Art Society, and in the late 1940s, he was famously commissioned by the Tata Group to create a series of paintings of their steel plants in Jamshedpur.Langhammer's artistic journey led him to explore the complexities of the still life, a genre often regarded as a window into the intimate relationship between artist and subject. With a discerning eye, he transforms ordinary objects—vases, fruits and flowers, into extraordinary compositions that transcend the mundane and radiate a sense of timeless beauty.

Due to his failing health, Langhammer returned to Europe in the 1960s, and passed away there in 1977.

( Avtar Mota )

PS

*Oskar Kokoschka was an Austrian painter and writer who was one of the leading exponents of Expressionism. In his early portraits, gesture intensifies the psychological penetration of character; especially powerful among his later works are allegories of the artist’s emphatic humanism.

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