Important Notice

EMMANUEL SCHLESINGER

This watercolour by Raza belonged to the collection of the late Emmanuel Schlesinger. He was an influential patron of Indian art in the post-Independence years, and is credited, frequently alongside Rudolf von Leyden and Walter and Kathe Langhammer, with having encouraged and mentored many artists of the Progressive Artists' Group during their early years. Many of these relationships developed into... EMMANUEL SCHLESINGER

This watercolour by Raza belonged to the collection of the late Emmanuel Schlesinger. He was an influential patron of Indian art in the post-Independence years, and is credited, frequently alongside Rudolf von Leyden and Walter and Kathe Langhammer, with having encouraged and mentored many artists of the Progressive Artists' Group during their early years. Many of these relationships developed into lifelong friendships, which played an important role in leading the Indian Modernists to be appreciated on European shores.

Schlesinger was born in Yugoslavia and grew up in Vienna, but spent the last thirty years of his life in India. In Vienna, he moved in artistic circles and collected works by many contemporary artists, including Oskar Kokoshka and Egon Schiele. Being Jewish, he was forced to flee Austria with the rise of Nazism and World War II in 1939, and he boarded a ship to Shanghai that docked in Bombay. Curious and fascinated by Indian culture, he disembarked - and never left.

Alongside von Leyden and the Langhammers, Schlesinger was an avid supporter of the Bombay Progressive Artists' Group, of which S H Raza was a founder-member. The trio, who had all been deeply involved with the arts in their home countries, "also introduced a European art sensibility that was radically different from the Royal Academy of Art style taught in art colleges in India." (Yashodhara Dalmia, "The Banquet Years," The Making of Modern Indian Art: The Progressives, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2001, p. 59) Schlesinger, a pharmacist by profession, frequently bought paintings by young Indian artists and also commissioned works for the annual calendars of the Indo-Pharma Company, established by him.

In 1943, two of Raza's watercolours of street scenes were selected for a group show at the Bombay Art Society. It was after this exhibition that he was noticed by Schlesinger, who visited Raza and invited him to meet von Leyden and Langhammer, effectively thrusting him into Bombay's art circles and contributing to his learning through exposure to various artists and styles. "Schlesinger took to me most affectionately and helped me in every possible way-purchasing my pictures and introducing my work to many people." (Artist quoted in Dalmia, p. 146)

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