Maskey: Premier Artist of Nepal

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Chandra Man Singh Maskey

Contents

Part One

1. Introduction …………………………………………………………………………………….. 3 2. Catalogue of exhibition held at Hotel Vajra, Kathmandu ……………………………………….. 5 3. Bio-data of Chandra Man Singh Maskey ………………………………………………………… 7 4. Recollections by Ruth Smock of Chandra Man Maskey …. …………………………. ……… … 9 5. Article - The Rising Nepal, April 5th, 1980 …………………………..…………………………… 11 6. Un-attributed article …………………………………………………………………………….. 12 7. Extract of article: Published in Arts of Nepal, 2011 ……………………………………………... 14 8. Pencil, pen and ink drawings ………………. (Nos: 1 to 48) .…. ………………………………... 16

Part Two 8. Pencil, pen and ink drawings continued .….... (Nos: 49 to 76) ………………………………….. 3 9. Oils and Watercolours ………………………(Nos: 77 to 110) …………………………………. 13

Part Three

8a. Sketches on cloth ….………………………...(Nos: 111 to 114) ……………………………...… 3 9. Oils and Watercolours ………………….…....(Nos: 115 to 185) .…. …………..………...…....… 5 10. References …. …………………………………………………………………..………...…….. 57 11. About the Author …………………………………………………………..……………........… 61

© Photographs by David K. Barker Cover design: Pema T. Domingo-Barker Note: At the time of the photography most of the art works presented in this document were in the possession of Chandra Man Singh Maskey and all rights belong to the artist and his heirs.

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8a. Sketches on cloth

111. The Trial. On cloth

112. Sketch on cloth

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113. Sketches on cloth

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9. Oils and Watercolours

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116.

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117.

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119. Sketches on cloth

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121 & 174. His Majesty Birendra Bir Bikram Shah

122 & 175. Her Majesty Queen Ratna Rajya Lakshmi

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127.

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128. Reception of a Bride. Watercolour

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135. Bhimasena Tower of Kathmandu before Earthquake

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139. His Majesty Birendra Bir Bikram Shah

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149. The Happy Royal Pair of Nepal

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150.

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155. Devotion of Gautama. Watercolour on cloth. 24 x 30 cm.

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156. Section of 154. Devotion of Gautama

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157.

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162.

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163. The Parental Visit. Watercolour on paper

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174. His Majesty Birendra Bir Bikram Shah

175. Her Majesty Queen Ratna Rajya Lakshmi

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183. The Temple of Nala, Bhagwati. Oil on plywood

184. His Majesty King Mahendra

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185. Mero Badal. My Dream

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10. References

1. Art and Architecture of Modern Nepal. Monday September 7, 2009, Kathmandu University, School Of Arts, Centre For Art And Design, Mandikhatar, Kathmandu

http://sculpttejesh.blogspot.com/2009/09/kathmandu-university-school-of-arts.html “C.3. Chandra Man Singh Maskey (1899 – 1984)

• First graduated artist of Nepal and studied at Calcutta Government School of Arts (India), sent by Chandra Shamsher. • After arrival from India started to teach in Durbar School, Tri- Chandra College, Padmakanya High School. • Also recruited as Curator in Nepal Museum and later recruited as the Director of Archaeology Department. • Participated in International Art Exhibition – Akhil Bharatiya Kala Pradarshani. • Used water colour, charcoal, pastel etc. for the paintings as medium and subjected to portraits, landscapes, religious paintings and other genre paintings.”

2. Arts of Asia. Special Nepalese issue. July – August 1984, “The Contemporary Movement in Nepalese Art, by Jagdish

Chitrakar 3. Bikshananda and Manokranti. My Collection. Tuesday, February 27, 2007 Conversation with a Philosopher “Vikashananda could have probably made his name as an artist, if not a philosopher. He started to train formally to

become an artist under the guidance of legendary painter Chandraman Singh Maskey at the tender age of 12. He immediately started showing the signs of becoming a promising young artist. Later in the year 1979, at the age of 17, his art took him to the former Soviet Union, where he participated in an art conference. There he was exposed to communist philosophy and was greatly impressed by the life and works of Lenin and Marx. He still has leftist leanings. After Vikashananda returned to Nepal his grim and desperate struggle against poverty and frustration started all over again. To shield himself from this he took to reading the works of great philosophers. First it was Osho, and then J Krishnamurthy greatly impressed him. His reading widened to Nietsche, Kahlil Gibran, Vivekananda and then Buddha. This all helped him to mature and take up the humble philosophical path he would later champion. During the same time he also started writing poetry. “

http://binoddhakal.blogspot.com/2007/02/bikshananda-and-manokranti.html 4. Chautara Gallery, Almere-Buiten, Netherlands

http://www.chautara.nl/art-gallery/art-in-nepal/art-history/influence.html “Chandra Man Maskey and the Westernization of Nepali Art “ When Nepali painter Chandra Man Maskey joined the Calcutta Government School of Art in 1918 for formal training, the concepts about art were changing. He brought the Western technique of painting to Nepal. But he also worked with the indigenous traditional Newar artists of Kathmandu whose family name is Chitrakar, and whose art shows the influence of the earlier traditional paintings of the subcontinent from Pre-Mughal art to the other religious and court paintings of the later time.

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i. The Westernization of Nepali art does not mean the loss or the complete rejection of tradition, yet it certainly makes a departure. The modern artists of Nepal create their own milieu and create their works of art in it. Their 'modern' is basically a Western concept, but they only exploit the Western education to broaden the range of their skills in painting. So the Nepali identity of the artists in this country should be sought in their own cultural and folk environments and in the their works, making the best use of their skills, whether they be Western or Oriental.

ii. The management of modern galleries and art schools, the logistics and modalities of the execution of paintings, the use of media and the display of the individual artist’s paintings on the wall to show an individual expressionistic projection. Most of these, if not all, are the acquired modalities from Western training. Modern art had now become a norm in Nepal as anyplace else. “

5. Culture Mapping of the Kathmandu Valley, Interactive Mapping and Archive Project “Tej Bahadur Chitrakar occupies a crucial position in the history of Nepali art. It is through his work – along with that of

Chandra Man Maskey – that the western artistic genres such as still life, human composition, life studies and landscape painting entered Nepal during 1920s and 30s. Before the arrival of Tej B. Chitrakar and Chandra Man Maskey, the art scene in Nepal was dominated by traditional religious paintings that were painted upon walls of temples, in door curtains of holy shrines and in cloth or paper. Tej Bahadur Chitrakar’s study of human forms and natural landscapes thus pointed towards the shift from the religious to the modern secular temperament in the 1920s and 1930s.”

http://www.webimap.org/index.php/profile/index/142 6. Shakya, Tejesh Man, South Asian Art Studies I Revised Handouts 2008/12 Batch. The History of Nepal Valley. September

2009, Kathmandu University, School Of Arts, Centre For Art And Design, Mandikhatar, Kathmandu http://sculpttejesh.blogspot.com/2009_09_01_archive.html 7. Subedi, Abhi, Nepali Art: Nepali Utopia. Contributions to Nepalese Studies (CNAS) Journal. Vol. 22. No 2. July 1995. Pages

122-123 Nepali art has the most distinctive identity of all the cultural artefacts of this ... These visions of Utopia have often shaped Nepali ... http://www.himalaya.socanth.cam.ac.uk/.../CNAS_22_02_01.pdf

8. Subedi, Abhi, Modern Nepalese Poems and Paintings. Canons and Contexts. Contributions to Nepalese Studies (CNAS) Journal.

Vol. 19. Number 1. 1992. Page 5.. Fine Art Nepal. Flash Backs. Chandra Man Singh Maskey

http://www.fineartnepal.com/new/index.php 9. Mainali, Pramod, Milestones of History. http://www.printsasia.com/book/Milestones-of-History-Pramod-Mainali-999335760X- 9789993357605 30. Chandra Man Singh Maskey

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10. Manokranti, Jay http://www.manokrantimovement.org/node/5 11. Myzeu Museum, Russia

http://museums.artyx.ru/books/item/f00/s00/z0000008/st032.shtml By Chandra M. S. Maskey. Nepal. 1950s Oil on canvas. 43 × 24 cm. Inv. No. 4244 II Received in 1962 from the Board of Art Exhibitions and Panoramas attached to the USSR Ministry of Culture, Moscow. Maskey belongs to the eldest generation of contemporary Nepalese painters. His artistic career started in the 1920s. This was the time when Nepalese artists began to assimilate Western European ideas, which eventually stimulated the development of national secular painting and the appearance of new subjects and genres. Chandra M. S. Maskey's paintings portray scenes of everyday life, local customs and traditional holidays. The principal characters in the painting Wedding Ceremony-the bride and the wedding-guests who came to greet her-are placed in the foreground. The artist gives great attention to the postures, gestures and costumes of his characters, to various attributes of the scene and to the architectural background of the picture: the brick wall, the carved wooden shutters and platbands of the windows and the painting of the portal all are rendered with a great precision of detail. Another favourite genre of Chandra M. S. Maskey is landscape, townscape in particular.

Wedding Ceremony

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12. Siddhartha Art Gallery, Babar Mahal, Kathmandu, Nepal “During the Rana regime only a few artists (Chandra Man Maskey, Tej Bahadur Chitrakar and later Kesab Duwadi) went

to India for formal artistic training as the British Raj had established several world class Art Academies right through out India.”

http://www.siddharthaartgallery.com/cms/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=70&Itemid=11 13. Van Der Heide, Susanne, Traditional Art in Upheaval: The Development of Modern Contemporary Art in Nepal, Journal

of Himalayan Studies (Kailash) Vol. 14. Numbers 3 and 4. Pages 234-236. himalaya.socanth.cam.ac.uk/.../kailash_14_0304_04.pd... http://www.artsofnepal.com/nepali-art-news/12/traditional-art-in-upheaval-the-development-of-modern-

contemporary-art-in-nepal.html

14. Vikashananda, Yogi, Dr. September 23rd, 2010

“Vikashananda could have made his name as an artist, if not a Philosopher. He was trained formally to become an artist under the guidance of legendary painter Chandra Singh Maskey. Later in the year 1979 at the age of 17 his art took him to the former Soviet Union. Then he was exposed to Communist Philosophy and was greatly impressed by the life and work of Lenin and Marx.

After returning to Nepal, he was desperate to struggle against poverty and frustration. He shield himself from this by reading the work of great philosophers like Osho, Krishna murthy, Niestche, Kahlil Gibran, Vivekananda and Buddha. These reading and explorations led him to adopt the humble Philosophical path he would later develop into the Manokranti way of life.” http://www.rajans.com.np/2010/09/23/dr-yogi-vikashananda/

15. Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chittadhar_Hridaya “While in jail from 1940 to 1945, Hridaya came into contact with artist Chandra Man Maskey.[12] Hridaya trained under

Maskey in secret, as he hid his writings from the prison guards. He has produced a number of paintings in watercolour, pencil and ink. They depict Buddhist and Hindu deities and genre scenes.[13] The colour illustrations in Sugata Saurabha were done by Maskey.”

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11. About the author

David Keith Barker was born in England and completed his full-time education in England and the South Pacific. In 1968, he commenced his career with international organisations undertaking assignments in the Caribbean, Bhutan, Iran, Fiji, Bangladesh, Nepal and Thailand. For several years he was a freelance photographer and writer specialising in handicrafts and associated subjects. He is now retired and is resident in Thailand with his wife Evelyn. Both continue to actively assist and support NGOs in Cambodia, Laos, Nepal and Vietnam. Pema, the only daughter, currently works at a Museum in New York. His personal discovery of the work of Chandra Man Singh Maskey occurred during the preparation of the Special Nepalese Issue of Arts of Asia, July – August 1984. The work undertaken at that time prompted this compilation of a photographic portfolio to serve as a record of Maskey’s work to be shared and enjoyed and hopefully a continued inspiration for Nepali artists of today and in the future. Currently he is preparing the manuscript, The Kiras of Bhutan.

Just published in November 2011, Textile Designs of Bhutan, Designs of Bhutan: Vol. 2 http://issuu.com/dkbbkk/docs/ bhutan_textiles

Prayer Wheels of the Himalayas. http://issuu.com/dkbbkk/docs/prayer_wheels_

Maskey: Premier Artist of Nepal

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