Stella Kramrisch

Stella Kramrisch (* 1896 in Nikolsburg , Czech Republic ; † 1993 in Philadelphia , United States of America ) was a cosmopolitan art historian who published fundamental research on Indian art and cultural history between 1920 and 1970 . In 1919 she received her doctorate with a thesis on early Buddhist temple sculpture. Between 1920 and 1950 she taught at the Kala Bhavana in Shantiniketan and at Calcutta University . In the 1930s she was also a lecturer at the Courtauld Institute of Art and cooperated with the Warburg Institute in London. In 1950 she accepted an appointment at the University of Pennsylvania , where she was also a curator for Indian art at the Philadelphia Museum of Art .

Life

Kramrisch was born in Nikolsburg , Czech Republic in 1896 . In her youth she attended high school in Vienna and received ballet training. In the public library in Vienna she discovered Indian philosophy , the study of which she devoted herself to in her youth. She studied art history with Max Dvořák and Josef Strzygowski and specialized in Indian art by reading Indian philosophy, learning Sanskrit and analyzing photographs of Indian buildings and works of art. In 1919 she received her doctorate with the thesis “Investigations into the nature of early Buddhist sculpture in India”.

Art historical work in India

During a lecture she gave in Oxford , Rabindranath Tagore became aware of Kramrisch's innovative research and won her as a lecturer in Indian art, so that from 1922 she taught at Visva-Bharati University in Santiniketan. From 1924 she received an apprenticeship at Calcutta University. At that time, her research on Indian art dealt primarily with the question of the relationship between artistic creation in India and nature. In 1922 she played a key role in the organization of the Bauhaus exhibition in Calcutta , in which works by today's well-known Bauhaus artists were exhibited in Calcutta in order to bring the modern artists of the Bauhaus and Bengal into contact with one another. Together with Abanindranath Tagore , she was the editor of the Journal of the Indian Society of Oriental Art from 1933. With her relevant publication Indian Sculpture , she presented a precise analysis of Indian sculpture in 1933, the format of which was actually intended as a practical handbook for travelers. Kramrisch also wrote about other artists of Indian modernism, for example Sunayani Devi .

Laszlo Nemenyi, Kramrisch's husband, worked as an economic advisor to the new government in Pakistan after India gained independence from Great Britain . Despite the dangerous situation, both decided to stay in India. It was only after Nemenyi was shot in 1950 that Kramrisch accepted the call to professor of South Asian art at the University of Pennsylvania . During her time in India , Kramrisch converted to Hinduism and began creating a collection of South Asian artworks. This was later given to the Philadelphia Museum of Art .

Bibliography (selection)

• Basics of Indian Art. Avalun Verlag, 1924.
• The Visnudharmottaram: A Treatise on Indian Painting and Image-Making . Calcutta University Press, 1928.
• Indian art. In: Anton Springer (Hrsg.): Handbuch der Kunstgeschichte. Alfred Kröner Verlag, 1929.
• Indian sculpture. The Heritage of India Series. Oxford University Press, 1933.
• The Hindu Temple. 2 volumes, University of Calcutta, 1946.
• Unknown India: Ritual Art in Tribe and Village. Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1968.
• Presence of Śiva . Princeton University Press, 1981.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Stella Kramrisch on dictionaryofarthistorians.org ( archive link, English).
2. ↑ Stella Kramrisch, Indian-Art Expert And Professor, 97. The New York Times, September 2, 1993, accessed December 18, 2019 . 
3. ↑ Darielle Mason: Interwoven in the Pattern of Time: Stella Kramrisch and Kanthas. In: Kantha. The Embroidered Quilts of Bengal. Philadelphia Museum of Art, 2010.
4. ^ Bauhaus in Calcutta. Retrieved December 16, 2019 .