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Already celebrated across the world as a poet, philosopher, educator and Nobel laureate, Rabindranath Tagore embarked on another journey in his final years: Painting. This chapter of his life, which would establish him as a distinctive voice in modern Indian art, is in focus at “Rabindranath Tagore and Mungpoo: The Collection and Archive of Maitreyi Devi”, a private sale exhibition by Christie’s, which is on in Mumbai until December 18.
Bringing together 28 never-seen-before artworks, more than 150 pieces of correspondence, handwritten manuscripts of poems, songs and books, signed first editions, archival photographs and personal effects, the exhibition offers an intimate encounter with Tagore. It also marks the 165th anniversary of Tagore’s birth and the 260th anniversary of Christie’s founding.
Describing it as one of the most significant and comprehensive private collections of Tagore’s works, Nishad Avari, head of the Department for South Asian Modern + Contemporary Art at Christie’s New York, says it sheds light on several dimensions of the Nobel laureate’s creative and personal life. “All the works come from the collection of his protégée, Maitreyi Devi,” he says, adding that the materials offer an opportunity to understand Tagore beyond his public persona.
At the heart of the collection is the connection between Tagore (1861-1941) and Maitreyi Devi (1914-1989), the acclaimed novelist, poet and social worker who became an important chronicler of his later years.
Maitreyi Devi and Rabindranath Tagore in Mungpoo, circa late 1930s | Photos: Courtesy Christie’s
The engagement began with her father, Surendranath Dasgupta, a philosopher and scholar who was a friend of Tagore. The polymath recognised Maitreyi Devi’s talent early on and even wrote the preface to her first collection of poems, published in 1930, when she was just 16. The Mungpoo chapter began four years later, when she married Manmohan Sen, a specialist in medicinal quinine, whose work with the Government Cinchona Plantation took the couple to this picturesque hill settlement in Darjeeling district.
It was here that Tagore found a favourite mountain retreat. He visited the family’s home on four occasions, between 1930 and 1940. These stays would become an important period in his life. Tagore, says Avari, composed some of his significant late works, both artistic and literary, during his time in Mungpoo. Almost all the works in the collection date from the late 1930s to 1940.
One of the most revealing aspects of the collection, according to Avari, is the presence of Tagore’s doodles and jottings across his manuscripts. These seemingly incidental marks provide an insight into the transition from the written word to the visual image, revealing how his artistic imagination often emerged from the margins of his literary work.
As the first non-European recipient of the Nobel Prize in Literature, awarded in 1913 (for Gitanjali), and as the composer of the national anthems of India and Bangladesh, Tagore had turned to painting only in his 60s, and is today recognised among the nine national treasure artists — the Navratans (nine jewels) whose work cannot leave India’s border. Unbound by academic conventions, he developed a visual language marked by enigmatic figures, and imagined creatures and forms.
Among the highlights at the exhibition are “Untitled (Taasher Maanush or Card Man)”, a pastel on paper executed in 1938; “Untitled (Seated Lady)” and “Bharakranti (Burdened)”, both dating to the late 1930s; and “Untitled (Hathi or Elephant), Untitled (Palayan or Escape)” and “Untitled (Mongpu Pahade or On Mongpu Mountain). The significance of the exhibition extends beyond his paintings, to include correspondence, manuscripts, notes, personal effects, including a kurta and a lungi, and so on. The correspondence includes everyday exchanges, including telegrams documenting his declining health in his final months, visits, the weather, and the people he encountered. The manuscripts, including that of his autobiographical work “Chelebela” (My Boyhood Days, 1940), feature his handwritten corrections, annotations and playful doodles.
The exhibition sale also reveals the archival impulse of Maitreyi Devi, who carefully preserved this material and subsequently devoted much of her life to documenting and interpreting the poet’s legacy. Following Tagore’s death in 1941, Maitreyi Devi, a Sahitya Akademi awardee and a Padma Shri, published her Bengali memoir, Mongpute Rabindranath, later translated into English as Tagore by Fireside. In the early 1970s, she published Rabindranath — The Man behind his Poetry.
