Remembering Prof B N Goswamy

It was in the year 1987 if not earlier, I received a book as a gift from one of my distant uncles who was working near the Oxford Press, “A Place Apart: Painting in Kutch, 1720-1820.”  I was just a fresher in an art school then. It was my first ‘meeting’ with Professor Goswamy. This book is one of my proudest possessions. Then came many and my collection became more prodigious. With every book that was getting added, my hypnotized brain never wanted to come out of the language, images, stories of history of art and aesthetics which were rendered by Prof. Goswamy.

15^th August 1933, he was born in the region of Punjab. His father was a judge. The son became an IAS officer to join the Indian administrative service in 1956, which went on for a short period of two years and B. N. passionately driven by art left the services to pursue studies. Blessed with guidance from teachers like Hari Ram Gupta, A. L. Basham and Archer, his inbuilt talents began shining like stars. He joined the Art History department at the Punjab University where he continued as the Professor Emeritus of Art History since the 1960s.

Prof Goswamy wonderfully highlighted the role of family and lineage in the development and continuation of miniature painting. Such as in his essay “Pahari Painting: The Family as Basis of Style” (1968) as well as his book Nainsukh of Guler: A Great Indian Painter from a Small Hill-State (1997), in which he wrote about the family history of the eighteenth-century Indian painter family of Pandit Seu and his sons Nainsukh and Manaku. This wasn’t easy. There was intense research of the inscriptions on miniatures.

His works continued to include more regions of India. The essays were elaborate and informative including studies of styles and techniques which ran in families as specific characteristics. His researched essays were published in many books like Ranga Roopa: Gods, Wars, Images, with the aim of introducing them to religious poetry and iconography through art, The Spirit of Indian Painting: Close Encounters with 101 Great Works, 1100–1900 (2014) with particular emphasis on the Mughals and the Rajputs.

Goswamy has been the recipient of numerous awards and honours, including the Jawaharlal Nehru Fellowship in 1969; the Rietberg Award for Outstanding Research in Art History; the Padma Shri in 1998 and the Padma Bhushan in 2008, both conferred by the Government of India; and the Punjab Gaurav Sanmaan (2018). He also curated the 2011 exhibition The Way of the Masters: The Great Artists of India, 1100-1900 — along with art historians Milo C Beach and Eberhard Fischer — on Indian miniatures at the Museum Rietberg, Zurich, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

Padmashri and Padmabhushan Prof B. N. Goswamy has left a huge body of work to inspire art students. He played an important role in encouraging the world to look at Indian Art, especially Indian Miniatures.

• Dr Manjiri Thakoor

 Author is Mumbai based Art Historian.