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Cause of art

The Charles Wallace Trust celebrates its silver jubilee

WE SHARE Richard Alford says that art binds India and the U.K

An artist may have proper training, but the lack of monetary facilities may hinder further exploration in art. That is where the role of the Charles Wallace India Trust scholarships comes to the fore. For 25 years now, the trust has been silently lending a helping hand to Indian artists. To commemorate the trust's silver jubilee, the British Council, which manages the Charles Wallace India Trust, is hosting a "low profile but high intensity celebration" as Anjoo Mohun, Head, Communications, India, BC, puts it.

The celebration this coming Tuesday evening at Char Bagh in the BC premises would be marked by the presence of Charles Wallace scholarship awardees from the past years. The organisers also hope to announce the names of the new awardees. The evening will also see a solo dance performance by Preethi Atraye, apart from an exhibition of 25 artists who have been recipients of the scholarship. The exhibition will consist of paintings, ceramics, graphics, installations sculptures, etc.

One can also meet Richard Alford, the secretary Charles Wallace India Trust. On a short trip to India, Alford who joined the British Council in 1968, and is looking after the trust for the past few years, has nostalgic memories of how the trust began, how the scholarships were divided into five categories (Visual and Performing Arts, Architectural and Material Conservation, Museum Studies and Curatorship, English Studies and Humanities), and how over the years, the United Kingdom and India have come closer all these years and how positively it has affected arts from both the countries.

For people

Says this degree holder in History from Oxford University. "We formally started the Charles Wallace Trust in 1981 when all the family members of Charles Wallace died. We did that according to the will he wrote in 1916 that all the money he earned from business in Calcutta should go for the benefit of the people. He had left enough finances for one entire generation to feed on. After all his family members expired, we set up this trust because there was an agreement between the Government of India and the Government of the U.K. to divide the money for the benefit of the people."

Whereas on one side Alford quickly comes out with names of beneficiaries of the scholarship, like artists Subodh Gupta, Chintan Upadhyay, Jensun Anto who have impressed him and the U.K with their innovative works, on the other he nostalgically remembers veteran artist Bhupen Khakkar who is his favourite from India. "Watching his works is like reading R.K. Narayan," says this former Governor of United World College of the Atlantic with a childlike twinkle in his eyes.

A twinkle that turns into a thoughtful look as he speaks about how the trust selects candidates for the scholarships. "We have a panel of judges to find out the genuinity of the artists, apart from our links with Khoj, which has a good network among Indian artists. I also try to visit art hubs where people are studying art. For instance, I have visited Chitrkala Parishad in Bangalore and Santiniketan in West Bengal."

Now as the art horizon is undergoing tremendous change, this lover of 19th Century watercolours warns, "There is an urgent need to curate exhibitions in a knowledgeable way rather than just putting together a show."

RANA SIDDIQUI

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