The Reluctant Art Critic

Advertising executive, art critic and possible catalyst of the modern Indian art movement, Rudolf von Leyden was an intriguing figure in pre-Independence Bombay

- Geeta Doctor

THE CATALYST Rudolf Von Leyden And India’s Artistic

Awakening by Reema Desai Gehi

Open any book on modern Indian art of the 20th century and the name of Rudolf von Leyden will leap out. Along with him there are two others, Walter Langhammer and Emanuel Schlesinger, who arrive a little later in pre-War Bombay, fellow exiles fleeing the Armageddon of Nazi Germany.

Linked by their common passion for art, they would become the troika scouring the bylanes of the city’s art district in the Fort area and collecting and mentoring a young generation of artists alight with the flame of what they knew would be the avant garde of the New India still waiting to emerge from its colonial undercurrents. One may take exception to the sub-title. However prescient and powerful Rudolf von Leyden may have been as a catalyst, he was only one of the persons sounding the clarion call to Indian artists of that generation.

Never mind. The fact remains that after aspiring to be a geologist and landing in Bombay, Rudi, as the author calls him, found himself writing art reviews instead. When he began his career in the advertising section of The Times of India, he found himself with enough time to trawl the art shows at the famed Taj Mahal Hotel and some of the other downtown venues for art. When in the latter phase of his life he joined the corporate world at Volkart Brothers, he continued to have a toe in the advertising world.