india’s rockefeller artists - dag · 2 | india’s rokeeller artists india’s rokeeller artists...

India’s Rockefeller

Artists

2 | India’s Rockefeller Artists 3India’s Rockefeller Artists |

An Indo-US Cultural Saga

kIShore SIngh


Artists


Copyright: 2017 DAG Modern, New Delhi

11 Hauz Khas Village, New Delhi 110016, India

Tel: +91 11 46005300 • Email: [email protected]

58, Dr. V. B. Gandhi Marg,

Kala Ghoda, Fort, Mumbai 400001, India

Tel: +91 22 49222700 • Email: [email protected]

The Fuller Building, 41 East 57 Street, Suite 708

New York, NY 10022 • Tel: +1 212-457-9037

Email: [email protected]

Website: www.dagmodern.com

PROJECT EDITOR: Kishore Singh

EXECUTIVE EDITOR: Ritu Vajpeyi Mohan

PRODUCTION EDITOR: Abhilasha ojha

PROJECT RESEARCH & ARTIST TIMELINES:

Poonam Baid, Krittika Kumari, Simer Dhingra, Vrinda Agrawal

DESIGN: Durgapada Chowdhury

PHOTOGRAPHY OF ARTWORKS: Durgapada Chowdhury and Saurabh Khandelwal

PRINT: Archana Advertising Pvt. Ltd., New Delhi

All rights are reserved under international copyright conventions. No part of this catalogue

may be reproduced or utilised in any form or by any means, electronic and mechanical,

including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system,

without prior permission in writing from the publisher.

ISBN: 978-93-81217-67-2


Artists

Table of ContentsNOTE FROM THE CURATOR ................................................................................6INDIA’S ROCKEFELLER ARTISTS

The Twentieth Century Snapshot .................................................................11Fuelling Philanthropy ....................................................................................16Early Nudges for a Visual Arts Grant ...........................................................19Council on Economic and Cultural Affairs...................................................22The JDR 3rd Fund/Asian Cultural Programme ..........................................22Porter McCray...............................................................................................27The Issue of the Culture Vultures .................................................................29From the Heady 1960s and 1970s to a Slowing Down from the 1980s ........33The Experience of the Grant ........................................................................36The Change of Guard at the Fund ...............................................................36The Asian Cultural Council ..........................................................................39And, in Balance .............................................................................................40

K.S. KULKARNI: Taking a Long Step Forward.......................................................44KRISHEN KHANNA: Visual Diarist ........................................................................64S.H. RAZA: Gestural Abstraction ..............................................................................86V.S. GAITONDE: Meditative Quietness ..................................................................112AKBAR PADAMSEE: Existential Sorrow ...............................................................132AVINASH CHANDRA: Art Deeply Sensuous ........................................................154NATVAR BHAVSAR: The Freedom to Paint .........................................................174 JYOTI BHATT: An Observer Rather than a Participant ........................................202K.G. SUBRAMANYAN: Between the Real and the Imaginary ..............................226 ADI DAVIERWALLA: To the Heart of the Subject ................................................252TYEB MEHTA: Of Apocalyptic Possibilities ..........................................................264KIRAN AND SATISH GUJRAL: Crafting a New Art ...........................................282HAKU SHAH: Master of Cultural Anthropology ..................................................300ARUN BOSE: As the Eye Sees or Memory Retains ................................................314PARITOSH SEN: Mirroring Lives ..........................................................................330RAM KUMAR: Structural Abstraction ...................................................................350BAL CHHABDA: Of Cinematic Shadows ..............................................................372VINOD DAVE: Creating Frozen Images that Melt Away .......................................386 BHUPEN KHAKHAR: Asserting a Gay Sexuality .................................................404 REKHA RODWITTIYA: Feminist Trysts in Art.....................................................424AND THOSE THAT FOLLOWED .......................................................................442Addendum I: List of Grantees ..................................................................................444Addendum II: Countrywide Grants .........................................................................450Endnotes ...................................................................................................................452Bibliography ..............................................................................................................454


When first the idea of a project that involved an exhibition of works by the grantees of the John D. Rockefeller III Fund (and its later iteration as the Asian Cultural Council) suggested itself, enthusiasm was somewhat lacking. A fund or fellowship or scholarship by its very nature is limiting. While an institution or foundation giving such grants may feel justified in documenting its work and those of its grantees, for a gallery and as a curator the reason was more amorphous. What would we achieve through such a process, and why expend labour over what was, necessarily another institution’s body of work?

True, the JDR 3rd Fund was an important one for Indian artists in the 1960s and 1970s, when India was, to a large extent, cut off from the world, if not politically or geographically, at least through a shortage of funds and foreign exchange that made international travel prohibitive for most. And though several important Indian artists had travelled to the US thanks to its largesse, the Fund was unlikely to have provided a comprehensive, or inclusive, selection and overview of the art scenario in India. In the country, the art infrastructure was abysmal and where the Fund helped in providing a window to a select few to travel and observe developments in New York and around, the fortunate artists could hardly be thought to be representative of artist movements and practices in that period in India.

This did, indeed, prove to be true when, on later research, it became evident that the Fund’s activities were confined, with few exceptions, to Bombay (now Mumbai) and New Delhi.

note from the Curator

It was, therefore, not only metro-centric, there appeared no way for its director, the venerable and hugely popular Porter McCray, to understand the nuances of the art scene in even Calcutta (now Kolkata), or, indeed, Madras (now Chennai), leave alone centres such as Baroda, Lucknow or Jaipur. And since McCray, as also the Fund, depended on a network of friendly associates to recommend the names of artists whose work might be considered worthy of the Fund’s ambitions, it promoted, to a large extent, a sense of coterie, a network of the like-minded or, at least, those who tended to hang around together. That it included within this fold some of the most respected names in Indian art is, therefore, a credit to either McCray’s screening process or the initial selection that led to recommendations of the names of approved grantee-artists.

But from an art-historical perspective, the selection was subjective, limiting, and necessarily flawed, a few jigsaw pieces against what was a churn as modernists sought to find contexts and resolutions that were ‘local’ instead of being delivered from the West. India had a great tradition of art but its manifestations as twentieth century art was yet to find root. Already, the Bengal ‘School’ and the Progressive Artists’ Group had moved into the realm of the ‘establishment’ and the exciting wink-of-the-eye creation and exit of Group 1890 had proved to be ephemeral. It was in that sense that the selection in the formative years of the grantees of the JDR 3rd Fund provided a dialogue for an engagement of artists practicing in, particularly, the decades of the 1960s and 1970s, and the movements and

excitement of practicing artists in New York specifically and the US generally.

The Fund seemed to be on adrenalin at the time, and to study it only from the perspective of the visual arts would be to take a jaundiced view of its overall aim of exposing to Indian art historians, archaeologists and others associated with the fields of music, dance, theatre and other disciplines, the developments and nuances of their counterparts in America. Not only was the Fund engaging with scholars and participants from these diverse fields, it was equally engaged with similar peer groups from countries across Asia – arguably among the largest such programmes undertaken at any one time in the world. If, therefore, the representation of Indian artists across India was not as comprehensive as it should ideally have been, that shortcoming was not on account of intent as much as a limitation of knowledge and human resource.

It becomes evident on hindsight that this engagement between Indian artists and the US provided them great space and room for thinking and experiencing alternate realities and knowledge. As we can see, in some case a change in perspective, or practice, was immediately discernible; in others, it probably just accentuated their thinking, or liberated their sensibility, freeing them to the possibilities of working in ways, or in styles or on subjects they may have previously not considered. And though, holistically, the Fund did not provide (nor was it its stated objective) a crossroads for Indian and American artists to meet and react, it did

prove to be an important pivot for those who benefitted from the grant.

What that takeaway was provides the crux of this curatorial exercise and the reason for this exhibition. It also documents the history of what can now be seen to have been an important and fruitful relationship. Its history provides an interesting narrative that resonates with the somewhat guarded relationship between the two countries not entirely comfortable with one another.

The challenge was not so much in writing this history – which, for most part, was exciting and full of surprises – as much as in understanding the visual history that required representation. There is no gainsaying that works from the period of the grant would be extremely difficult to acquire for the purposes of the exhibition, so this book has aimed to document the range of an artist’s works, but particularly those from around the period of the grant. What the exhibition may have as a lacunae is more than adequately compensated in this publication.

Working on the projects opened up a Pandora’s Box for us. The first Indian artist to have benefitted from the Rockefeller munificence was K. S. Kulkarni as early as 1950. At the time, the grant had come directly from the Foundation. But even before the JDR 3rd Fund was established, Krishen Khanna had been actively pursued by another Rockefeller entity, the Council on Economic and Cultural Affairs, and became its first and only beneficiary, though S. H. Raza, at the time in


Berkeley, was offered a stipend to extend his stay and soak in the art scene in New York. The JDR 3rd Fund was the most active and hosted thirteen artists between 1962-73, and it is this critical period when the Fund probably had its most impact. Without in any way taking away the huge support offered by the subsequent Asian Cultural Council, it must be said that today there are many more opportunities offered to Indian artists who are no longer confined to silos in their home country, and the world of the internet has made the globe a much smaller space where no information is further than a click of the mouse.

That is what made our task somewhat easier too, but the project has required a good deal of both secondary as well as primary research. Where possible, we reached out to grantee-artists, or, in their absence, their families, in search of material, whether by way of documents or photographs. Interviews were done in person, over telephone or via email. In New Delhi, a colleague, Vrinda Agrawal, triggered off the research, ploughing through the internet, to find only two Indian scholars, Christine Ithurbide and Brinda Kumar, had worked on the amazing Rockefeller contribution for their PhD theses. We were able to obtain two books published by the JDR 3rd Fund and the Asian Cultural Council respectively, but these required more research. In New York, another colleague, Josheen Oberoi, put on her scholarly hat and made appointments at the Rockefeller Archive Center in Sleepy Hollow, trawling through drawers full of files and notations, to send exhaustive pages of official (and often mind-numbing and repetitive) documents that nevertheless brought

home the immense scale of the Rockefeller operation that did not end with the release of a grant but included drawing up itineraries for the artists’ travels, their appointments with heads of museums, universities and galleries, procuring and issuing invitations to important openings and events in New York City, and managing everything from accommodations to interactions.

Including works for the exhibition was equally a trial in which I was assisted in the selection by Vijay Kumar from DAG’s own archives, and by Ashish Anand who suggested those we might take on loan from elsewhere. Pearl and Akhil Mago were willing to have Akbar Padamsee’s iconic Greek Landscape documented in the book—it was made shortly before the artist’s departure to New York—but found it impossible to transport from their apartment on account of its size, therefore suggesting its digital version for purposes of the exhibition. In New Delhi, the Kiran Nadar Museum of Art and the artist Manu Parekh were generous with loans of works, and friends in USA proved equally considerate.

For the book, the picture research proved a challenge for Abhilasha Ojha, even as work on the design with Durgapada Chowdhury continued apace. Apart from the text, we decided on extensive timelines to outline the highlights and turning points in each artist’s career, and in this task I was ably assisted by Poonam Baid, Krittika Kumari and Simer Dhingra who, along with Ojha, turned it into a team task that was completed against all odds.

Finally, of course, there was the cut-off for the exhibition. DAG’s mandate is confined to the modernists, but the Asian Cultural Council has embraced the contemporaries, and as artist Vanita Gupta pointed out, they were certainly part of India’s Rockefeller Artists and needed to be acknowledged as such. While this anomaly cannot be plugged in the exhibition, cognizance of ACC’s continuing role in this important contribution has been taken in this book where we have tried to provide as comprehensive an overview as possible. Just as some artists represented here were not invited by the JDR 3rd Fund as artists, but under the discipline of crafts, so too, some grants have been in the form of stipends. We have tried to be inclusive of all these in attempting a history that is comprehensive, but any document with a history that spans six decades (or more, if it includes Kulkarni) is bound to have interpretations or facts that may be wrongly construed. Such errors, while regretted, are not intended to be mischievous. And while every attempt has been made to provide citations and credits, once again, any that have been overlooked are regretted. I hope this book, and exhibition, will come to represent a stepping stone to a slice of art history that, previously neglected, has now got the fillip it deserves.

– kishore singh


Who was John Davison Rockefeller III, and why is he significant for the history of Indian art?

In the answer to these questions hangs the tale of a well-known American collector of Asian art who, though largely unknown to Indian artists and art historians, gave an unprecedented fillip to modern Indian art practice in a way that has neither been fully appreciated nor acknowledged.

The Twentieth Century SnapshotTo fully grasp Rockefeller’s role in the narrative of modern Indian art, it is important to understand the context, or the milieu of the time. India entered the twentieth century as a British colony, but one which was slowly awakening to an anti-imperialist fervor. As World War I was ending, this struggle turned into a mass movement, with Indians across the length and breadth of the country rallying around. This feat was partly a result, rather ironically, of two British introductions to India: Western education and the railways. Both served to unify the country—one providing access to ideas of liberty, equality and nationalism while the other facilitated the movement of people and, hence, ideas. Though seemingly led in English, this resistance gave an impetus to the creation of local syntaxes in poetry and ‘new’ writings in the vernacular, the development of cinema, a stirring form of theatre, and, certainly, changes in art practice that rejected academic realism in search of directions that had their roots and their hearts and minds within an Indian context. Nationalism, thus, sought an assertion of an indigenous cultural identity.

India̕s Rockefeller Artists

Twentieth century art tends to be studied in convenient silos that include the Bengal ‘School’ of the turn of the century that favoured a return to past imagery—best exemplified in the works of ‘revivalists’ Abanindranath Tagore, Nandalal Bose and others—the individual oeuvres of Raja Ravi Varma, Jamini Roy and Amrita Sher-Gil, the expressionist sensibility nurtured in Rabindranath Tagore’s university town of Santiniketan, and the pan-Indian impact of the Bombay-based Progressive Artists’ Group who, collectively, make up a large sum and substance of the Indian art market.

The Progressives played an important role in the development of a model for modernism in the country, though, in fact, a collective, unified language was anathema to them. In 1947q, reacting to the binding strictures of the Bombay Art Society that corralled the practice of art within rigid parameters, the young and precocious Francis Newton Souza decided to give voice to the need of establishing a liberal art practice free of any ideology. In fact, he effectively wrote the manifesto for the new art practice. The lack of ideology was, of course, a chimera, but it brought in a language of robustness and stubborn resistance that freed up the artistic space of any requirements of belonging to a tradition. It was a refreshingly liberal and, to a fault, cheeky—and it worked.

Souza’s co-conspirators, not all of whom either understood or kept their assignation with the manifesto—though, that too was written into the document—were Syed Haider Raza, Maqbool Fida Husain, K. H. Ara, Sadanand

Born in 1906, the eldest among six siblings born to John D. Rockefeller, Jr. and Abby Aldrich, a Princeton graduate in economics, John D. Rockefeller III or ‘Demi’, as he was known, showed early interest in philanthropy and international relationships. The JDR III Fund was founded in 1963 to carry out a programme of cultural exchange with Asia Image credit: Rockefeller Archive Center


K. Bakre and H. A. Gade. Their debut exhibition in 1948 was both controversial–for Souza’s nude self-portrait–as well as path-breaking in creating a new popular. It launched their careers as well as those of several others who bought into their idea of an expression freed of the weight of the past while embracing what they considered current.

In the backdrop of a country newly independent, the Progressives were restless to put history firmly in the past and get on with the present. Their cause was supported by collectors who represented this zeitgeist, and also by powerful critics who served their interest, critiquing their works in The Times of India and The Illustrated Weekly of India. That they were European emigres with a background in art better served the purpose of tutoring and mentoring that went hand-in-glove.

It is somewhat ironic that the Progressives, who had got off to quite a start in Bombay would soon flee from the city to settle in Paris (Raza), London (Souza, Bakre), New Delhi (Gade), Husain proving to be famously peripatetic, with only Ara remaining behind in Bombay to handle the baton that he had been left to hold. For the market that they soon came to command, the Progressives whittled away the gains of their labour, something that their ‘Associates’, a group of seven artists that had aligned themselves to the movement, came to seize with somewhat mixed results at the time.

There is no doubt that the Progressives as well as other modernists in India were informed by art that had been created earlier in Europe, and without diminishing its relevance within the Indian context of a newly created nation and the excitement of finding its place in the world, there was still the abiding influence of their European counterparts that could hardly be ignored. If Pablo Picasso provided the inspiration for so many of them, the influence of others could hardly be ignored. As American art scholar and critic Thomas McEvilley observed:

…when seeing [Tyeb] Mehta’s thrilling oil paintings, which to Western eyes recall the paper-cutout

works of Henri Matisse, the beautiful paintings on glass by K. G. Subramanyan, which recall earlier works by Matisse, we find ourselves asking what the value is of having more Matisse-like work long after Matisse. But if this is how we approach art, we miss how beautifully its apparent Western derivation mixes automatically with strangeness and idiosyncrasy. These questions bring us deep into issues of art history and derivations. The question of chronology—who was first in making things look like that?—needs to be viewed within the larger context of cultural diffusion.1

Incidentally, both Tyeb Mehta as well as K. G. Subramanyan were part of the group of artists sponsored by the John D. Rockefeller III Fund to travel and experience art in America in the 1960s.

Thus, by the time Rockefeller came on the Indian art scene in the early 1960s, the Progressives had already made enough of a name for themselves, and it was their Associates who

Henri Matisse cut outs, Tate Modern, The Snail, 1953

Top: Catalogue of the Progressive Artists’ Group, Bombay, July 1949, in which F. N. Souza had recorded the Manifesto that was to be their guiding lightAbove: Members of the Progressive Artists’ Group assembled at the Bombay Art Society salon in 1947. Displayed behind are paintings of Kashmir by S. H. Raza, who received a Rockefeller stipend

Top: This page, taken from Span Magazine, New Delhi, published in 1962, shows a visitor studying a painting by S. H. Raza, which was loaned by Mrs. John D. Rockefeller III for a show of fifteen Indian painters in Asia House in 1962. The others included Jamini Roy, K. S. Kulkarni, Mohan Samant, M. F. Husain, Satish Gujral, Krishen Khanna, Ram Kumar, H. A. Gade, V. S. Gaitonde, among othersTop right: The verso detail, which mentions that the work was loaned by the Rockefellers

Facing page: Press clippings of various American publications citing the seminal exhibition, ‘Trends in Contemporary Painting from India’, which was held in Graham Gallery in 1959. The flagship travelling exhibition, sponsored by Asia Society, featured abstract landscapes from S. H. Raza, Fish Market by Mohan Samant, Meera by M. F. Husain, two paintings of London from F. N. Souza, among others Image credit: Modern & Contemporary South Asian Art, New York, 19 March, 2012, Sotheby’s catalogue

15India’s Rockefeller Artists | 14 | India’s Rockefeller Artists


level, and consisted of works that they displayed first in their home and in his office. In this, they were guided by art historian Sherman Lee who was a curator of Asian art at the Cleveland Museum of Art. Lee and John D. often had long conversations, whether in person or via detailed correspondence, regarding the acquisitions. Aschwin Lippe at the Metropolitan Museum in New York, Laurence Sickman of Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City, and dealers Adrian Maynard in London, Alice Boney in Tokyo, and Nasli Heeramaneck and Doris Weiner in New York fed his curiosity and his increasing interest for these acquisitions, though it was Blanchette who seemed to enjoy these trysts more. ‘I always felt sorry for Mr. Rockefeller because he was doing the collecting while I was the one having the fun of learning about it,’ she observed, as quoted in papers housed in the Rockefeller Archive Center oral history notes, as quoted by Brinda Kumar.2

This collection was viewed in parts in 1970 and 1975, and bequeathed to the Asia Society in 1978, following John D. Rockefeller’s death in a car accident. It was first exhibited in its entirety in 1981 when the new Asia Society building was inaugurated, and has since been bequeathed with further objects that were acquired by his widow. In particular, the collection’s highlights include Chola bronzes from India, Song and Ming period Chinese ceramics, and Southeast Asian statuary.

John D. Rockefeller III first travelled to Asia in 1929, continuing thereafter through the 1930s and 1940s. In 1951 he was instrumental in drawing up a report on cultural relations between Japan and the US. ‘Acting on some of his own recommendations in that report and extending them to other Asian countries as well, Mr. Rockefeller then took the lead in revitalising the Japan Society and in establishing and developing the International House of Japan, the India International Centre, and the Asia Society.’3 Subsequently, Rockefeller supported several important exhibitions of Asian art, and remained, outside of cultural affairs, a great exponent of development concerns, chief among them being agriculture and population control.

were most able to reap the Rockefeller benefit. Five of the seven would enjoy grants from the Rockefeller Foundation that would take them to America, exposing them to trends in American art practice, creating a segue between India and the US that would, to some extent, help in the creation of India’s modern art market.

Fuelling PhilanthropyTo understand the import of Rockefeller’s assistance, it is important also to understand who he was and how his interest fuelled one of the most exciting developments in the history of twentieth century art in India.

Born in 1906, the eldest among six siblings born to John D. Rockefeller, Jr. and Abby Aldrich, a Princeton graduate in economics, ‘Demi’, as he was known, showed early interest in philanthropy and international relationships. These interests reflected in the work of the Foundation when he was later at the helm. Not only that, his experience while serving in the navy during the war years prepared him well for his appointment as a cultural consultant during the Japanese peace treaty negotiations undertaken with John Foster Dulles. Married by then to Blanchette Hooker, the

He was no stranger to India too. On a visit to the country in 1958, he and his wife met Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, and in a letter penned in long hand, he wrote, ‘As we leave your great country, may I express to you and your daughter my deep appreciation of your warm and friendly hospitality. If more of my countrymen could experience this friendliness of your people towards us and appreciate more fully the accomplishments and aspirations of India under your leadership, the misunderstandings which sometimes lie between us would be reduced to a negligible minimum.’4

In many ways, it was prescient of what the Asian Cultural Council would set out to do as its objective.

Brinda Kumar notes:

Although JDR 3rd himself was not a formal student of Asian art, it is nonetheless important to note that through the initiatives of many of the organisations he founded and funded the study of Asian art and culture, both within America and abroad was greatly

Far left: JDR III and Blanchette Hooker Rockefeller with their collection displayed at the reception of his office in NYC, 1968

Left: In June 1979, Asia Society broke ground on its New York City headquarters, designed by Edward Larrabee Barnes. Pictured here are then Board Chairman George W. Ball, Blanchette Hooker Rockefeller, and then President Phillips TalbotImage credit: Rockefeller Archive Center

couple began the process of collecting Japanese as well as Asian art from an amateur’s interest perspective, something that would develop into a passion with the passage of years.

By the 1950s, his philanthropic contributions were bearing considerable fruit, even as he was instrumental in pushing for tax reforms allowing private philanthropy to flourish. His commitment to issues of economics and birth control led to the formation of the Population Council in 1952. In 1953, he set up the Council on Economic and Cultural Affairs which, later, was renamed the Agricultural Development Council with the aim of providing assistance to farmers in Asia. In 1956, he set up the Asia Society, initially founded to promote a greater knowledge of Asia in the US. He emphasised the role of cooperation between private and public institutions about which he wrote in his book, The Second American Revolution, published in 1973. By the time of his tragic death in a road accident in 1978, he had given shape to enough of his ideas to ensure a continuation in spite of his absence.

The Rockefellers’ interest in Asian art—Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Sri Lankan and Indian—started at a private

After graduating from Princeton University in 1929, John D. Rockefeller III embarked on a global journey culminating with stops in Japan, Korea, and China. These travels—the first of over 20 subsequent trips to Asia—left a lasting impression on Rockefeller and sparked a lifelong fascination with that continent. In this photo from his trip, Rockefeller (far left), poses on the Great Wall of China with Columbia University Professor Joseph Perkins Chamberlain (centre), Hobart Young (second from right), and an unidentified man and womanImage credit: Rockefeller Archive Center


Clockwise from top left: Indira Gandhi with William Schumann and John D. Rockefeller III, New York, 1966; John D. Rockefeller III in an image from 1962 with Jawaharlal Nehru and S. Radhakrishnan; John and Blanchette Rockefeller with Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, 1963; a letter written by John D. Rockefeller III to Nehru in 1958Image credit: Rockefeller Archive Center; the images were published in Modern & Contemporary South Asian Art, New York, 19 March, 2012, Sotheby’s catalogue

Top: John D. Rockefeller III with Parliamentarian Morarji Desai, New Delhi, 1962 Above: Natvar Bhavsar (left), who was given the John D. Rockefeller III Fund in 1965, with Saryu Doshi who was funded through the Asian Cultural Program (ACP) of the JDR 3rd Fund as a young scholar working in the field of Indian art history Image credit: From the personal archives of Natvar Bhavsar

promoted. Just one example of this was through the Asian Cultural Program (ACP) of the JDR 3rd Fund. From the late 1960s through the 1970s, young scholars who would go on to become preeminent in the field of Indian art history had been funded through this organisation to support their research into the field of Indian art. These included the likes of Pradipaditya Pal, B. N. Goswamy, Saryu Doshi, Michael Meister, Stuart Cary-Welch, and Catherine Glynn, to name a few.5

Early Nudges for a Visual Arts GrantWhile John D. Rockefeller III’s personal interest in Asian art has widely—and perhaps rightly—been considered the catalyst for the cultural grants they formalised, it is possible that the trigger might actually have come from artists themselves. As early as 1950, K. S. Kulkarni had been sponsored by the Rockefeller Foundation to represent India at the International Arts Program, USA. There is evidence of some artists from India writing to the Foundation for support for visits to America as early as 1955.

On November 2, 1955, artist Laxman Pai, who was then in Paris, wrote to Chadbourne Gilpatric at the Rockefeller Foundation in New York:

I am writing to you on the suggestion of Mr. Nicolas Nabokov, the Secretary General of the Congress for Cultural Freedom. I am an Indian painter, born in Goa, and presently residing, temporarily, in Paris. I am sending you under separate cover a short biography of mine as well as newspaper clippings and photographs of my work. I spoke to Mr. Nabokov about my desire to go for a year to the United States to work there and study the artistic work of your country. I would like, of course, to visit all the museums possible and get in contact with contemporary American painters. I am unfortunately in no position to afford a trip of this kind. I live entirely of my own work and

you know how difficult it is in the West for a young painter to live on his own production, not to speak of my own country. Mr. Nabokov suggested that I write to you in order to find out whether there would be a chance for me to obtain a fellowship from the Rockefeller Foundation for that purpose. I would be very much obliged to you if you kindly let me know whether such a possibility exists.6



It is interesting that Pai’s suggestion for funding an Indian artist in America is similar to that followed a decade later when, in fact, Rockefeller’s support did kick-start the entire programme.

Even more interesting is that Chadbourne Gilpatric who Pai wrote to at the Foundation was, in fact, a former OSS operative. The OSS, or Office of Strategic Services, was a wartime intelligence agency of the United States, ‘But there was no prejudice against OSS veterans, who were recruited to the Rockefeller Foundation in droves,’ writes Saunders, mentioning that Gilpatric was appointed to the Foundation ‘directly from the CIA’.7 Following India’s war with Pakistan and the creation of Bangladesh in 1971 which saw American warships appear threateningly in the international waters surrounding the country, it was easy to

see why India should become concerned about American activities, even philanthropic ones, where members of the former intelligence service found access. More on this later.

Nicholas Nabokov, whom Pai referred to in his letter to Gilpatric, was a part of Congres pour la Liberté de la Culture in Paris, a prominent cultural organisation which had, in the past, had philosopher and social critic Bertrand Russell as its president d’honneur. On the same day that Pai wrote to him, Nabokov too wrote to Gilpatric:

When we met in India, you very kindly suggested that I should keep my eyes and ears open as regards gifted people whom I may meet in India, and who could be of interest to the Rockefeller Foundation.

Following this suggestion, I am writing today on behalf of a young Indian painter, Mr. Laxman Pai, with whose work my colleagues and I have come to be acquainted in the course of last year. First a few words about Mr. Laxman Pai himself and then about his problem: In the opinion of many people in Paris and in India—and certainly in my opinion—Mr. Laxman Pai is one of the most gifted young painters of our generation. His work is original, consistently of a high standard and has the curious and rare quality of being both profoundly grounded in the national tradition and, at the same time, constructively reflective of the most advanced trends of contemporary Western painting. We have had for a year now a standing friendly relation, and the Congress has helped him—to the extent of its limited possibilities—to get known here in Paris and in his own country. Matters are complicated by the fact that he is a native from Goa and as such in the difficult position of not being able to return to his country, i.e. he could, in fact, return but would not be allowed to leave it again. Mr. Laxman Pai has recently returned from India to Paris; he had a very successful exhibition in Delhi and is now working on a portrait of Nehru.

Chadbourne Gilpatric, whose work with the Rockefeller Foundation began in 1949, was a former Office of Strategic Services operative

Now about his problem: Mr. Laxman Pai would like very much to go to the United States for a period of a year to make contacts with American artists, study the trends of contemporary painting in the United States, to visit the country and make his work known to the Americans. We are all here very much in favour of his going to America and think that the contact with the U.S.A. would be extremely good to him and his work. I feel that if it were at all possible for the Rockefeller Foundation to grant Mr. Laxman Pai a fellowship, it would be an extremely fruitful investment, and hence I would like to recommend him whole-heartedly to you and your colleagues.8

Gilpatric, unfortunately, was unable to extend such a fellowship, and wrote as such to Nabokov. To Laxman Pai, he wrote:

I am sorry to write to you at the present time that this Foundation is not in a position to consider fellowship awards for painters, and so I could not encourage you to expect the financial assistance you want. It is always possible, of course, that the Arts programs of this Foundation may change and expand, and in view of such possibilities, I am glad to know about your interest.9

About the same time, Kenneth Morgan of Colgate University, Hamilton, New York wrote to Gilpatric about Frank Wesley, an Indian artist studying art in Kyoto, Japan. Wesley had written to Morgan reminding him of their meeting where the latter had bought his works, and mentioned: ‘I tried to find means to come over to [the] U.S. for a short time but so far nothing has come this way’.10

Morgan did write to Gilpatric.

He is an Indian Christian, third generation, but very closely tied to the Indian traditions of art. If you happened to be interested in a college which

was working hard on its humanities programme, you could do them a real service by placing such a person in their art department for a year—provided it is a department which creates art as well as talks about it—so he could both learn about our art and teach a bit about theirs.11

Gilpatric was unable to oblige. While the Foundation had, surprisingly, and as an isolated case, funded the grant of the Indian artist K. S. Kulkarni as early as in 1950, it would be a while before a formal programme would be set up to allow more artists to make the most of the opportunity the Rockefeller Foundation, in whatever form, began to offer artists and other cultural exponents in India.

Wesley had earlier studied at the University of Lucknow’s art school, and painted in the tradition of the Bengal School and M. A. R. Chughtai. Little known in India, he stayed for five years in Kyoto and fulfilled his ambition of travelling to America with a two-year stint at the Art Institute of Chicago before moving and settling in Australia.

In the year these letters were being written, the Rockefeller Foundation was grappling with its intent in India. Its interest at that point was purely in development, chiefly in education and agriculture. A July memo, for instance, records that:

AM [American town planner and architect, Albert Mayer], with impressive evidence, points out that there are few job opportunities for the thousands of Indians who have come and are coming to the United States for specialised training. He’d like to see a foundation like the RF [Rockefeller Foundation] give concentrated attention to maximising the learning experience of selected Indians while in the U.S., but even more, give attention to their proper placement and productive work after return to India. This is a crucial ‘must’ if talented and well-trained Indians are to get on escalators towards positions of responsibility in government, universities, and in other fields.12


A June 1955 diary notation in the Foundation’s archives mentions the necessity for the Foundation to first understand on-ground reality in India without rousing its ire. ‘In the first place,’ the notation reads, ‘this might take the form of travel and living expenses for up to nine months for a highly-qualified American to reconnoiter in India. This should be done with great care so as not to arouse further Indian resentments against Americans trying to sell them on something they don’t particularly want.’13 The Foundation needed to be cognizant of the Indian government’s self-worth as well as priorities, and needed to appear supportive rather than assertive.

Council on Economic and Cultural AffairsNot many know that the precursor to the John D. Rockefeller III Fund was the Council on Economic and Cultural Affairs (CECA). While its mandate was ‘to stimulate and support economic and related activities important to human welfare’, it was the source of grants for two of the earliest Indian artists to receive the fellowship.

The CECA invited Krishen Khanna to the US, and followed it up soon after with a stipend to S. H. Raza to extend his stay in the US. While Khanna’s grant took the form that it would take for artists later funded by the John D. Rockefeller III Fund—a funding to travel and observe art in America—in Raza’s case it was shaped differently. At that time, Raza was already practicing in Paris and, so, strictly, did not qualify for the purpose of bringing to Indian art in India the sense of American experience. Even so, a precedent was set, one which helped other artists who were overseas at the time to avail of the award. Natvar Bhavsar was able to use it not just to extend his stay temporarily but also to become a permanent resident and artist of Indian origin based in America.

‘I was the first artist from India to get the grant,’ Krishen Khanna says. ‘Of course it wasn’t called the John D. Rockefeller III Fund then, it was given by the Council of Economic and Cultural Affairs, which was funded by the Rockefellers. Basically, it was the same outfit, but it was

separated later into the Agricultural Council, and the John D. Rockefeller III Fund. So, I was in CECA, and Raza was called from Paris under the same grant.’14

The Council’s business was being handled at the time by A. Weizblatz, Porter McCray coming to and driving the office soon after. ‘I came to know them both extremely well,’ Khanna claims. Raza’s stipend, however, was not at Khanna’s behest. ‘Of course, I would have said yes, if they had asked me, but he was in Paris. He had gone to Berkeley as artist in residence, so the grant allowed him to extend his stay to live in New York and be a part of this.’15

The Council had its task cut out for it, at least in the early years, when a referral system would have been difficult to put into place. With most of the Progressives absent from India, the Associates might have seemed the right choice, and the well-spoken Krishen Khanna might have seemed a safe bet given his Anglophile ways that eliminated the possibility of any culture shock.

The JDR 3rd Fund/Asian Cultural ProgrammeChristine Ithurbide writes of how the John D. Rockefeller III Fund was set up:

JDR 3rd’s personal diary of 1963 reveals how he eventually achieved his project of creating a particular art programme with Asia. On August 8, he had lunch with Porter McCray, the previous director of circulating exhibitions at the MoMA during the first contemporary art exchanges with India. He told McCray that he had long felt that

Press clipping from Tarrytown News announcing the incorporation of the John D. Rockefeller III Fund which describes its ‘guiding principle… that the national life of all countries is enriched by association with other cultures, Tarrytown, New York, is where John D. Rockefeller built his mansion, home to four generations of RockefellersImage credit: Asian Cultural Council: 50 Years, 2014

23India’s Rockefeller Artists |


culture and the arts could play an important part in fostering better understanding and mutual respect and appreciation between the U.S. and Asia. Despite a number of grants made through the Asia and Japan Societies and through CECA toward this end, he had never approached the subject on a really ‘thoughtful and organised basis’. JDR 3rd told McCray that he was planning to set up a new fund that he had in mind, under its aegis, to make a survey as to the possibilities in this direction and hopefully develop a programme. JDR 3rd, who liked McCray, was impressed with him, eventually asked him whether he might be interested in heading up such an effort, at least in the survey stage. The next week they met again to further discuss a cultural interchange programme primarily with Asia and primarily in the arts. ‘We seemed to be together in our thinking and I am very much inclined to go ahead and take him on to lead a programme under the so-called JDR 3rd Fund which I am about to establish,’ JDR 3rd wrote in his diary on August 13, 1963. Hence, a powerful programme for the future of the contemporary Indian art scene was created.16

Already in 1962, the Council for Economic and Cultural Affairs ‘had issued a report entitled Asian Arts: Who is Doing What?, which concluded that despite a wide spectrum of activities concerned with the arts in Asia, the dimension of depth was lacking and many programmes were peripheral to the main functions of the organisations involved. The report posited that successful programmes in the future would have to have more knowledge of “the sensitivities and the resources of Asian countries” and would have to tackle the difficult problem of locating the key individuals who could lead the way to distinctive developments in the arts.’17

The lunch meeting between Rockefeller and McCray, which would result in the latter becoming the first director of the Asian Cultural Program of the JDR 3rd Fund, was premised on a note that McCray wrote on August 13, 1963 regarding

a ‘Cultural Exchange Program in the Arts’ that reported the following:

Basic objective: to foster [the] understanding, respect and appreciation between [the] peoples of Asia and [the] U.S. through cultural interchange. Focus: because of [the] vastness of Asia, emphasis of programme must by necessity be to bring Asian culture to the people of the U.S.A. Subject area: the performing and visual arts but not necessarily ruling out motion pictures and literature. Geographical area: all of Asia from Japan through Afghanistan. Grant areas: fellowships, scholarships and travel grants; grants to assist in the exchange of individual artists, companies and exhibitions; assistance for centres fostering international exchange; backing conferences or other promotional efforts to advance objectives. Form of assistance: generally working with or through other organisations by means of grants only operating directly where no alternative exists to obtain objectives.18

In a press release announcing the setting up of the Fund, John D. Rockefeller observed, ‘The programme of the Fund will involve the exchange between Asia and our country of persons, ideas, creative work, materials and techniques primarily in the fields of the visual and performing arts. In general, the Fund will work through existing organisations by means of grants.’19

‘A guiding principle of the programme will be the conviction that the national life of all countries is enriched by the association with other cultures,’ noted McCray at its establishment. On October 2, 1963, M. S. Handler of The New York Times reported:

The formation of a new Rockefeller fund, the JDR 3rd Fund Inc., to promote cultural exchanges in

depth between the peoples of Asia and the United States was announced here yesterday by John D. Rockefeller 3rd, its founder and president.

The fund is another enterprise in the saga of the Rockefeller brothers, who, as individuals and a group, have fostered worldwide social action programmes embracing education, welfare, science, culture, civil rights, conservation and related fields. The lengthening list of domestic and foreign programmes of the Rockefeller brothers has not been compiled for publication, and the best unofficial estimate is that they cover several score of general areas and include 200 specific activities. Mr. Rockefeller, chairman of the board of directors of the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, has long been associated with Asian cultural affairs. Although the fund’s programme will involve cultural exchanges between Asia and the United States, the main emphasis will be on bringing front-rank Asian performing artists, painters, sculptors, writers, architects, and other works to the United States. Porter A. McCray, the fund’s director, formerly of the Museum of Modern Art, said American audiences usually were exposed only to Asian performing artists of international repute. He said there were many front-rank artists in Asia who were unknown in this country and should be invited here. Such visits, he said, would broaden and deepen American interest in Asian culture. Mr. McCray recently concluded a year’s travel in Asia and Africa under the joint auspices of the Stare Department and the Museum of Modern Art. He said that the field of cultural exchanges would have to be thoroughly explored and that the fund would draw heavily on the advice of many Asian experts affiliated with American universities.On the other hand, the universities will be among

the principal beneficiaries of the visiting Asians, since institutions of higher learning are already doing much to study Asian cultures. In its early phase the fund will operate with a small staff and modest outlays, but as the field is explored, expenditures will be increased to give additional impetus to the exchanges. Mr. McCray said that while the visiting Asians would expose the Americans to their culture, they themselves would be exposed to American techniques—for example, in the theatre, the dance and fine arts. The fund, he said, will also consider supporting translations of Asian literary works into the English

Porter A. McCray, the first director of John D. Rockefeller III Fund


language to provide Americans with greater access to Asian culture. The traffic, Mr. McCray said, will not be entirely East to West. Distinguished Americans will be sent to Asia.20

Rockefeller himself was aware that a greater or, at least, dominant American culture tended to subvert other global cultures, however well established and recognised. He articulated this clearly in the Foreword to a report on the Fund’s performance published much later:

Traditionally, Americans have viewed international relations primarily in political and economic terms with comparatively little attention given to the cultural dimension. This has been true whether one considers academia, press coverage of world events, or formal governmental relationships. The result is that our world outlook has tended to be bound by our own culture instead of being broadened by a sensitivity to other cultures; this remains largely so today. The recognition that the cultural dimension was neglected, coupled with the belief that it is crucial to genuine international understanding,

prompted the trustees of The JDR 3rd Fund to initiate its Asian Cultural Program in 1963. They believed that enhanced knowledge of other cultures was a worthwhile end to a further end––through knowledge and respect for other cultures we come to respect and appreciate the peoples themselves. In turn, this provides a more effective setting for carrying out political and economic affairs.21

The Asian Cultural Program of the JDR 3rd Fund ‘made eighty to a hundred grants annually to artists, scholars, and students for research, travel, and study’.22 It also made grants to institutions, and in India it has included the following:

1964: India International Centre, New Delhi 1964, 1966: Bal Bhavan and National Children’s Museum, New Delhi1964-72: International Cultural Centre (multiple grants)1966: The American Academy of Benares1967: Calico Textile Museum, Ahmedabad 1967, 1968: International Centre for the Study of the Preservation and the Restoration of Cultural Property 1967, 1971: National Museum, New Delhi 1970: Kalakshetra Academy of Arts

Memorandum from Porter McCray to John D. Rockefeller III to discuss ‘plans for creating a foundation to nourish cultural growth between the U.S. and the countries of Asia’ (above); the press release issued by the JDR 3rd Fund on October 2, 1963, announcing its incorporation (centre and right)Image courtesy: Asian Cultural Council: 50 Years, 2014

1971-73: Central Museum Conservation Projects (multiple grants) 1974: Maharaja Sawai Man Singh II Museum (Textile Conservation Project), Jaipur1975: Council for Tibetan Education 1977: Tibetan Music, Dance and Drama Society 1984: Tibetan Institute of Performing Arts 1986: Theatre Academy of Pune 1987: Padatik Cultural Centre 1998: Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts, New Delhi 2005: Sanskriti Pratishthan, Delhi2007: Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage (INTACH), New Delhi; Maharashtra Culture Centre 2008: Upayan Sansthan Institute 2010: Darpana Academy of Performing Arts; Adishakti Laboratory for Theatre Art Research; Chorus Repertory Theatre2014: Laihvi Centre for Research on Traditional and Indigenous Performing Arts2015: Nrityagram Dance Ensemble

Porter McCrayPorter McCray, the programme’s founding director, was at least as important for it as Rockefeller himself. Born in West Virginia in 1908, his childhood was not one that allowed much exposure to the arts. Though his interest for the arts and theatre was whetted in the years he was studying architecture in New York, it was later, at Yale, that this interest was consolidated: ‘…there were these brilliant people coming from Yale, mostly all from Paris. Josef Albers came from Paris. Then, when I got into architectural school proper, the technical part of it, we had people like Fernand Leger and Amedee Ozenfant, even Corbu (Le Corbusier)––he was not a regular, but he was an occasional lecturer on various subjects. Oscar Nitzchke, the French architect who just died the other day; even that fascinating fashion designer Madame Schiaparelli.’23

As a volunteer for the American Field Service organisation, McCray had his share of war experiences and even trained

in Bombay, only to be redirected to Calcutta after the atomic attack on Hiroshima. It was Nelson Rockefeller, John D. Rockefeller’s brother, who asked him, in 1947, to join the Museum of Modern Art and plan tours of some of its highlights to Europe and Latin America as part of its international programmes. While the circulating exhibitions programme was exciting enough, the international programming opened newer vistas and opportunities:

The French, for example, approached us and asked us if we would consider putting together an exhibition of major French works in American collections. We did that, borrowing—since the French wanted to go back to that era prior to the Modern period, which was quite rich—in areas that were not most characteristic of the MoMA, as a matter of fact, so that the first big French show that was lent of American collections was called De David a Toulouse-Lautrec. For this show we got the major museums in the U.S. interested and, as a matter of fact, asked most of the directors or the curators of painting and sculpture in these institutions to join a committee in The Museum of Modern Art and to make the selections for the show. The purpose, really, was to strengthen the possibility of borrowing major things from those museums, and it worked like a charm as it progressed, because the members of the various top museums of the country would sit around a table in the morning and vye with one another on which was going to lend the better picture.24

McCray went on to take exchange exhibitions around the world as part of his Department of Circulating Exhibitions at MoMA and, from 1961 to 1962, over a one-year period, made an extensive survey of cultural activities in thirty-eight Asian and African countries and Australia for the Department of State before accepting Rockefeller’s offer to head the Asian Cultural Program for the JDR III Fund. Its scope included countries such as Afghanistan, Bangladesh,


Burma (now Myanmar), Cambodia, China, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Laos, Malaysia, Nepal, Pakistan, the Philippines, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Thailand, and Vietnam. ‘When the Asian Cultural Program first began, the director looked for information and advice from such people as the staff members of CECA, the Rockefeller Foundation (which had earlier conducted a substantial programme in the field of Asian arts), the Asia Foundation, and the Ford Foundation; those involved with the Fulbright and the International Institute of Education (IIE) programmes; the personnel of American embassies and British Council offices in Asia; scholars of Asian arts; and longtime American residents in Asian countries.’25 While the Fund had the kind of freedom government programmes are unable to provide, its greater challenge was in personalising them:

In keeping with the Fund’s basic philosophy of providing personalised assistance, its grants

have been tailored to meet specialised needs and circumstances. Rather than make grants to other institutions for administration and disbursement, in almost all cases the Fund has dealt directly with those who have received funds to carry out activities. This has required the staff to devote a great deal of time and energy to very specific needs and requirements, including not only selecting individual candidates for grants and determining which American institutions could best serve the needs of each Asian grantee, but also finding housing for grantees and their families and unravelling customs and transport details for shipments of materials to Asia.26

McCray’s task was cut out for him. Even given his experience, it was difficult to select the nominees for the grant. How were they to be chosen? Who should nominate them? Might it be better to work through the government, or privately, or as mostly happened, by word of mouth and personal recommendations? ‘There has been no formula for finding these people. Sometimes official recommendations have led to them, sometimes not. Often such considerations as local hierarchies and language proficiency have been complicating factors, since the most suitable candidate may not have the best command of English or be considered by his or her superiors to be the best choice for study abroad. Thus identifying the most promising candidates for project or fellowship assistance has been a major aspect of the director’s job.’27

The grant, which was set up in 1963, began to seed artists from 1964 onwards, beginning with V. S. Gaitonde. Fourteen artists (and hundreds of others: art historians and writers, musicians, singers, architects and theatre professionals among them), found themselves benefitting from the grant through an interesting cycle of recommendation and referencing. At its head, directing its selection and activities, was McCray, who met with most of the selected artists, but also with the cultural elite of the country, both in India and outside, a task that was made difficult because the Indian government did not view the Fund’s activities above suspicion.

Press clipping from New York Times, published in 1963 on the Rockefeller fund (right), which was introduced by John D. Rockefeller III (left)

Trustee and Asian Cultural Council Chairman Emeritus Elizabeth McCormack (left) with 1992 grantee Kapila VatsayanImage credit: Asian Cultural Council: 50 Years, 2014

The Issue of the Culture VulturesPorter McCray, who was interviewed in 1977 by Paul Cummings for the Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, spellt it out for the interviewer:

Mr. McCray: So you had to define the categories in which you were going to work, the levels at which you were going to work, the balance that you felt you could get in visual performing, the balance you could get in India versus China versus Japan and so forth. And it has been a constant balancing act in that respect. In many instances, in the beginning, it was very easy, for example, to work with the Japanese because it was before the Japan Foundation was created and a great many Japanese were bursting to get out of Japan to undertake their favorite projects in this country. Mr. Rockefeller had a particular interest in the Japanese, but he did not want that to dictate the choice of programs. He wanted a balance to be established and we ended up realising that India, with its immense population and with its very poor economy, needed more help proportionate to

many of the other countries we were dealing with. And even though at times, particularly toward the end, it became increasingly difficult to maintain satisfactory reciprocity with the Indians…Mr. Cummings: Oh, really?Mr. McCray: …we did continue to operate.Mr. Cummings: Why?Mr. McCray: Well, they became much stickier about allowing Americans in to do research, graduate work and things.Mr. Cummings: Really? For what reason?Mr. McCray: Well, I think it sprang from the early abuses of the CIA activity there, probably. We had to live with that. I mean, the fact that you are always subject to that accusation that you are really an agent disguising as a cultural vulture, I’ve always had that hanging over me from time to time almost anywhere.Mr. Cummings: When did that start, that accusation?Mr. McCray: Well, it started—it was planted, I think, during the Cold War.Mr. Cummings: Oh, so it goes back?Mr. McCray: It goes way back. And in India, the noticeable change came when we sided with—quite the contrary—with Pakistan in the Bangladesh business. That’s when India really clamped down.28

India’s apprehensions weren’t entirely unfounded, for the US—and the CIA—had been known to use cultural outfits to gain sensitive leverage and plant agents in countries where it had interests. In his book, The Cultural Cold War, author Frances Stonor Saunders drew just such scenarios, offering names of those who infiltrated the system:

The Rockefeller Foundation, no less than the Ford, was an integral component of America’s Cold War machinery. Incorporated in 1913, its principal donor was the legendary John D. Rockefeller III. It had assets exceeding $500 million, not including


an additional $150 million in the Rockefeller Brothers Fund Inc., a major think tank which was incorporated in New York in 1940. In 1957 the fund brought together the most influential minds of the period under a Special Studies Project whose task was to attempt a definition of American foreign policy. Subpanel II was designated to the study of International Security Objectives and Strategy, and its members included Henry and Clare Boothe Lance, Laurence Rockefeller, Townsend Hoopes (representing Jock Whitney’s company), Nelson Rockefeller, Henry Kissinger, Frank Lindsay, and William Bundy of the CIA. The convergence between the Rockefeller billions and the U.S. government exceeded even that of the Ford Foundation. John Foster Dulles and later Dean Rusk both went from the residency of the Rockefeller Foundation to become secretaries of state. Other Cold War heavies such as John J. McCloy and Robert A. Lovett featured prominently as Rockefeller trustees. Nelson Rockefeller’s central position on this foundation guaranteed a close relationship with the U.S. intelligence circles: he had been in charge of all intelligence in Latin America during the Second World War. Later, his associate in Brazil, Col. J.C. King became CIA chief of clandestine activities in the Western hemisphere. When Nelson Rockefeller was appointed by Eisenhower to the National Security Council in 1954, his job was to approve various covert operations. If he needed any extra information on CIA activities, he would simply ask his old friend Allen Dulles for a direct briefing. One of the most controversial of these activities was CIA’s MK-ULTRA (or ‘Manchurian Candidate’) programme of mind control research during the 1950s. The research was assisted by grants from the Rockefeller Foundation.’29

India, clearly, had reason to be wary. But while the distrust between the governments continued to rise, artists—and the ‘cultural vultures’ McCray alludes to—found there

was reason to celebrate their proximity to the Rockefeller Foundation’s grants which they enjoyed seemingly without any brainwashing—a soft power establishment, while placing, in India and in other Asian countries, former CIA operatives in a new role.

Interestingly, given the concerns that cultural NGOs were a nest of CIA operatives, a large number of such people from the cultural field closely associated with the ruling dispensation of the Nehru-Gandhi family (in particular Indira Gandhi) availed of what the Fund had to offer them, among them Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay, Pupul Jayakar, Homi Sethna, Rajeev Sethi, Kapila Vatsyayan, Jyotindra Jain and his wife Jutta Neubauer-Jain.

Mr. McCray: We could not get—at that time, India established a lot of very rigid regulations about doing research in that country. It had to be done in association with a university under a specific faculty supervisor. In many instances we had very expertly trained people here who could not find a counterpart in India and they were blocked.Mr. Cummings: Just couldn’t do anything?Mr. McCray: Because they were not willing to take a less than satisfactory supervisor. And, oh, it got awfully messy because the implication was that they should not only work under the university but the person had to be—the grant had to be increased so the person could register and matriculate in the university and do so many credits and so forth and so on.Mr. Cummings: Oh, really?Mr. McCray: And it got so complex that we dropped most every case.Mr. Cummings: But you could still get people from India to come here?Mr. McCray: Oh, yes. There was no decrease in that flow at all.Mr. Cummings: Because I know I keep running into them these days, here and there. You know, one thing that has always interested me about the

JDR Fund because I think it has been one of the more public but yet a very personal foundation. I’ve always gotten the feeling from reading the reports and kind of seeing what they’ve done and kind of talking to people that Mr. Rockefeller really knew where it was going, what it was doing. You know, you and the other people there were quite aware of his presence. It’s not like some foundations that seem rather distant from the donor. Is that so?Mr. McCray: Well, yes. You know, we were small. We were a rather intimate operation. Mr. Rockefeller is, you know, involved in lots of things. And he did not want to be bothered by much detail. There were formal museum meetings done with quite extensive docket memoranda made for everything that was proposed and Mr. Rockefeller is one who reads every last word, you know, in those and asked questions himself at the meetings and before the meetings, I think, consulted by telephone a lot of the trustees. So he came to the board meetings quite well informed and almost invariably favouring the proposals that came up. He gave us the most extraordinary cooperation. I look back on it, in the twelve years, we never had a significant turndown on a proposed project.Mr. Cummings: Really?Mr. McCray: Because they were carefully evaluated before being recommended. I had an area of discretion, of course.Mr. Cummings: Right.Mr. McCray: Certain small grants, I could make at my own discretion and simply report to the board and get their formal approval after the fact… Mr. Cummings: Now, what—you know, what kind of response did you get from, I guess, the political sectors in these various countries? Were they interested in your appearance and your adding their cultural activities?Mr. McCray: Well, I operated with a fairly low profile if possible, because that was the great advantage we had of being a private institution.

Mr. Cummings: But still, you were associated with…Mr. McCray: And being able to deal directly with people, rather than governments. Because the danger, I suppose in all governments to some extent, but it seemed a slight threat in some places that we were working in Asia, we were trying to avoid—we were trying to maintain our right of selection. And since visas—not visas but passports were issued and since permissions were given to—all museum people, you must realise, in India and most of the Asian countries are in civil service. So in order to get those people, the people that you want, out, you have to get the government to agree to release them from their jobs and also to give them a leave of absence, with or without pay, but allow them a passport that will permit them to complete their assignment. And with those elements of control, they were accustomed in some instances to naming their own man.Mr. Cummings: I see.Mr. McCray: And there was a danger of these people becoming political oriented—not oriented, but politically chosen, rather than getting the most professionally qualified…

Porter McCray visited artist V. S. Gaitonde in his studio—this was actually before he accepted the position as head of the Fund, in his role as representative of MoMA—and offered him the chance to come to New York. The grant, which was set up in 1963, began to seed artists from 1964 onwards, beginning with Gaitonde who received the grant in 1965


Mr. Cummings: How did you circumvent that?Mr. McCray: Well, by—just as I said, by operating a very low profile and not by dealing through, as some of these programmes have been, through our own embassy to their government, but to go right to the institution or the individual and propose something. You see, for example, it’s against the law in India for an Indian to apply directly to a private foundation for a grant.Mr. Cummings: Oh, really?Mr. McCray: Yeah.Mr. Cummings: But you could go to him if you knew…Mr. McCray: I joined the club rather quickly and would seek out the people that we would know and would consult the local people, experts, whose recommendations guided us in our choice. I mean, people who were not looking at it from a political point of view. And would then invite the person to come, you see.Mr. Cummings: I see, which was acceptable.Mr. McCray: And in most instances, it worked. In one very significant case, it did not work in India for almost two years to get the director of the Madras Museum on leave of absence to come to the States to study his special area of interest. We got a denial of the request from the Federal Government of India, Delhi, and an approval from the Tamil government, which is the provincial government. And as you know, the Tamil government and the central government were in a great controversy and particularly under Mrs. Gandhi, the Tamils or the South Indians refused to accept the government request—the federal government requirement that Hindi be inaugurated as the official language. Tamil was the older Hindu language, and the Tamils were not willing to give that up. So they proceeded along two fairly parallel lines, with very little overlapping, so that it was almost invariably to be expected that if one approved one and the other—that the other one would disapprove. And the director of the

Top: Akbar Padamsee, F. N. Souza, S. H. Raza and Laxman Pai in Padamsee’s hotel room in Paris, September, 1951Above: S. H. Raza, when he received $1,000 from the Council on Economic and Cultural Affairs, was teaching at the University of Berkeley. By the time he received the grant, he had won the Prix de la Critique in Paris, the coveted critics award, the first time a non-European had claimed it

museum, [inaudible], got caught between these two fires and he could not get out, he could not get his passport. Then if he got his passport from the federal government, the provincial government would not give him leave of absence from his job. So…Mr. Cummings: One way or another.Mr. McCray: It took almost two years to get him out. That was the most difficult case we had.Mr. Cummings: Why—why was there a law in India where people couldn’t apply to a foundation? Do you have any idea?Mr. McCray: Well, they were trying to hold down on the brain drain for one thing, understandably. And they felt that it was just the appropriate channel to deal through one government to the other rather than an individual foundation coming in and dealing with a citizen. A lot of––I must say, the Indians particularly have accommodated a great deal within the regulations that they have to operate under.30

But the suspicions and wariness came in much later, and the initial years were smoother sailing. McCray was able to visit artist V. S. Gaitonde in his studio—this was actually before he accepted the position as head of the Fund, in his role as representative of MoMA—and offered him the chance to come to New York as part of the group.

From the Heady 1960s and 1970s to a Slowing Down from the 1980sAs we have stated earlier, by the time of the start of the Rockefeller grants, ennui had begun to set into the Indian art movements. The Progressives, who had provided a bold and dynamic thrust from 1947 on through much of the 1950s, were tiring and had become, by then, the establishment against which new voices had begun to raise themselves. Some of the headiness of a new country coming face-to-face with challenges that were proving overwhelming led to a degree of fatalism, of a failing state and nation. Shortages, strikes, a sense of hopelessness and, soon, a war with China that India lost, bred a feeling of failure. To an extent, protest art as a panacea for social ills began to appear. But

Artist Krishen Khanna on getting the Rockefeller funding: ‘I was the first artist from India to get the grant… it wasn’t called the John D. Rockefeller III Fund then, it was given by the Council on Economic and Cultural Affairs, which was funded by the Rockefellers… So, I was in CECA, and Raza was called from Paris under the same grant’

it was sporadic, and understanding of art itself was low, and doomed to sink further even as practitioners of high modernism in India’s art centres experimented to bring new techniques and subjects into their practices.

Rockefeller’s philanthropy, therefore, may have come when the art fraternity was at a crossroads in India, and not a moment too soon. However, it did not in itself lead to any form of collective. As Khanna reiterates, ‘I always knew America was trying to build itself as a leader culturally and had wonderful dancers, musicians and artists. No other


country could compare. And we had free access to this, but I also never lost sight that I was going to come back home.’31

The initial years of the grant were the busiest with a number of artists following thick in each others’ footsteps, creating a camaraderie. If Krishen Khanna and S. H. Raza were beneficiaries of the CECA, Gaitonde became the first artist under the Fund to be invited to spend a year in New York (November 1964 to November 1965); Akbar Padamsee was invited from Paris, where he was based at the time, from June 1965 to June 1966; at the time Avinash Chandra, also a grantee, was in London; and Natvar Bhavsar was in New York.

Bhavsar claims to not have known about the grant, which he was awarded while studying art in Pennsylvania, and which allowed him to stay on in the US. ‘My visa was running out, I was due to return to India, When I received a communication in formaing me of the Fund’s sponsorship grant theat had been proposed unknown to me.’32 However, Christine Ithurbide recorded that:

The fact that each artist would require recommendation letters to receive a grant highlighted the role of networks among artistic society. It was difficult to suggest names of the artists not belonging to his fraternity, mentioned Jyoti Bhatt retrospectively. Padamsee recommended Davierwalla and Tyeb Mehta, the latter was also recommended by Krishen Khanna and M. F. Husain.33

Khanna had become friends with McCray before he came to head the Fund, following which, of course, ‘he’d pick my brains about who should be next and so on’.34 Khanna recommended both Gaitonde and Tyeb Mehta, who came to New York in 1968 on the grant. Yet, Mehta, at the time, had been unsure of accepting the grant, calling on his friend Krishen Khanna to intercede on his behalf and explain his financial position:

Tyeb told me since he was not flush with money, he wanted clarity from the Fund about how his family

would manage in his absence. I wrote to Porter to explain Tyeb’s financial position with respect to his family, and Porter wrote an angry letter saying that I was trying to twist his tail. When the grant did come through for Tyeb, I was the caretaker for Tyeb’s children, taking care of them and their education.35

While Tyeb’s insistence on clarity in terms of financial support for his family did create a brief unpleasantness between Khanna and McCray, their friendship soon overcame this hiccup. Khanna’s other recommendation, Gaitonde, too ran foul of McCray. Khanna’s term under CECA and Gaitonde’s under the Fund partly overlapped, and they both stayed at the Chelsea Hotel. ‘Porter told me that Gaitonde was a bit of a disappointment to him because he seemed to spend a lot of his time going to the movies! I said he’s a good fellow, he likes movies, he likes music too, and works quietly. His painting was the first to go to a museum in New York.’36

In its early years, the John D. Rockefeller III Fund’s funding via the Asian Cultural Program kept a sharp spotlight focussed on India where, over the decades of the 1960s and 1970s, its two hundred and forty-seven grants were split between individuals (two hundred and fifteen) and institutions (thirty-two). The grant was awarded across a wide range of disciplines which included archaeology, architecture, art history, conservation, crafts, dance, design, film video and photography, literature, museum studies, music, theatre, something it described as ‘multiple disciplines’ (under which the scholar, doyenne of cultural practices and head of Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts, Kapila Vatsayan was awarded twice, in 1970 and 1992), and, of course, visual art––the last totalling twenty-three, but of which the actual artists awarded included only while two artists were separately included under the crafts category. The rest, it seemed, were made up of those whose careers seemed not entirely devoted to the making of visual art.

There was some level of category confusion, which is curious. In 1974, when Ratan Parimoo was awarded the grant, it was as an artist—and he was certainly one—but

strangely, it did not play to his strength as an art historian and author. While his paintings have been collected, and he has taught at the Faculty of Fine Arts in Baroda, it is his writings that he is best known for. Asok Kumar Das was awarded the grant in 1978 as an artist, when he should have been invited under the category of museum studies. A well-known art historian, he has been director of Maharaja Sawai Man Singh II Museum, Jaipur; senior visiting fellow, Victoria and Albert Museum, London; Jawaharlal Nehru Fellow; Satyajit Ray Chair, Kala Bhavana, Visva-Bharati, Santiniketan; and has had assignments and associations with Smithsonian Institution, Getty Museum, Los Angeles, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Museum of Islamic Art, Doha, Indian Museum, Kolkata, and School of Arts and Aesthetics, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. A scholar and museologist as well as an eminent author, he was however certainly not an artist. Similarly, Dr Sudheendra Sharma, who won the grant in 1979, was a senior and renowned theatre artiste and teacher. It would appear that these awardees were either listed under the wrong category in the compilation of grantees published in Asian Cultural Council, 50 Years (New York, 2014), or invited outside their category per a list.

L. P. Sihare, one of the best-remembered directors of the National Gallery of Modern Art, was invited by the fund as an art historian (1965), while two artists, Satish Gujral and his wife, Kiran Gujral were invited to New York intriguingly under the head of Crafts (1965). Such anomalies may have been exercised because the Fund committee could not rationalise more than a certain number of cultural grantees in any one category within a year, but would have found it difficult to resist pressures from the political establishments of the time. Gujral, for instance, was the brother of one of the more important of Indira Gandhi’s cabinet ministers.

By the 1980s, the funding, now routing its grants through the recently created Asian Cultural Council (established in 1980), slowed down, but it did also support the Festival of India celebrations along with the Government of India at its

American outing. While the decade of the 1990s was poorly served by the Council given that the South Asian region was almost entirely ignored during this period, activities did resume from 2000 onwards. But the shrunken grants and the move away from visual arts saw a slowing down not dissimilar to starving. Under the Foundation’s many faces and the different names the programme has had since the beginning, the following artists have benefitted:

Rockefeller FoundationK. S. Kulkarni (1950)

Council on Economic and Cultural Affairs (CECA)Krishen Khanna (1962)S. H. Raza (1963)

John D. Rockefeller III Fund (JDR 3rd Fund)V. S. Gaitonde (1965)Akbar Padamsee (1965)Avinash Chandra (1965)Natvar Bhavsar (1965)Jyoti Bhatt (1965)K G Subramanyan (1966)Arun Bose (1969)Paritosh Sen (1970)Ram Kumar (1970)Adi Davierwalla (1968)Tyeb Mehta (1968)Bal Chhabda (1972-73)

Asian Cultural Council Vinod Dave (1983-84) Bhupen Khakhar (1985) Rekha Rodwittiya (1989)Pema Rimzim (2006)Mnam Apang ( 2012) Pradeep Mishra (2012)Vanita Gupta (2014)Rohini Devasher (2015)Vibha Galhotra (2016)Utsa Hazarika (2017)


The Experience of the GrantThe grant in all its avatars was clear about one fundamental issue: not to award those who lived, or chose to live, or practice, in either America or even elsewhere other than in the country of the emigre. The idea of the grant was to pollinate a larger section of the creative fraternity and intelligentsia about America’s cultural dominance and to seed some of it in the native country of the grantee not by way of American supremacy as much as its engagement with new techniques and the usage of art and culture as a tool. ‘In bringing talented Asians to the West for training or surveys, the Fund has always placed great emphasis on grantees’ returning to Asia and has made this a condition of grant acceptance. It has actively avoided granting fellowships to individuals who were likely never to return home and sought out people with strong commitments to using their skills in their own country. In most cases, grantees have adhered to this policy and have returned to Asia. In those instances in which Asian grantees have remained in the United States, political circumstances have often dictated their decision.’37

This explanation notwithstanding, there was certainly nothing political in either the selection or the decision of some artists from India to stay on. S. H. Raza, under the CECA, was already in Paris and returned to France. Avinash

Chandra’s was the odder choice given that he had been based in London and stayed in New York for eight years before deciding to return to the UK. Natvar Bhavsar, Arun Bose and Vinod Dave were studying in the US when awarded the grant. It might have been expected that they would return to the country of their origin at the conclusion of their studies and period of grant, and it probably upset the committee when they decided to stay on.

However, these were but a few aberrations. By and large, the Fund ran successfully in intent and execution. It was not only generous in ideas but also financially comfortable. The generosity of the Fund was such that it was sufficient for most to consider taking their spouse along, the opportunity being rare enough to warrant it. ‘They gave me $600 a month and an additional $100 per month for library and materials,’ Khanna recalls. ‘My wife and I had to manage within the amount—which was not difficult.’38 The stipend ensured that the grantees were able to fully exploit the purpose of the grant, to travel and experience the cultural milieu.

The Change of Guard at the Fund In 1975, Porter McCray retired as director of the Fund. Its success, to a large extent, was due to him. During this period he had ‘developed an innovative and highly effective model of international philanthropy based on fellowship awards. He placed great emphasis on the search for and selection of talented individuals with exceptional motivation, openness, and potential,’ wrote Miho Walsh, executive director of the Asian Cultural Council. ‘He also understood that money alone could not create a successful learning experience, and he implemented a personal approach to grantmaking based upon a sensitive appreciation of each grant recipient’s interests and goals. As a result, grants included not only fellowship funds but also individually tailored programmes designed to help ensure that grantees fully realised their objectives, and grantees were given the freedom to revise their goals if necessary.39

The Rockefeller Archives have a section where McCray’s considerable correspondence is stored. From his office in

Artists Natvar Bhavsar, V. S. Gaitonde (centre) and Bal Chhabda (right) used the grant for their artistic and personal growth

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