Andrée Karpeles (1885-1956) View Of A Mountain In Sonarmag, Kashmir, India, Hst, Circa 1910

Andrée KARPELES
Paris 1885 - Cannes 1956

View of a mountain in Sonarmag, Kashmir region, Himalayan Range
Circa 1910
Oil on canvas
Titled "Sonarmag" on the back and numbered "49"
34 x 41 cm
Good condition, no repainting or old restorations

The works of Andrée Karpeles are rare on the market, and more generally painted views representing Himalayan landscapes.

Andrée Karpelès (Paris, 1885 - Grasse, 1956) is an important figure in the promotion of contemporary Indian art on the French scene. A childhood spent between Calcutta and Paris opened the doors to India and gave birth to a taste for South Asia in her and her sister Suzanne, a future Indianist. Suzanne Karpelès (1890-1968) focused more on Cambodia and entered the French School of the Far East in 1922, before becoming curator of the Royal Library of Cambodia in Phnom Penh. Andrée Karpelès, for her part, pursued an artistic career and from the beginning focused on depicting landscapes and scenes of Indian daily life. From 1906 onwards, she exhibited almost every year at the National Fine Arts Salon, the Salon d'Automne and the Salon des Indépendants, where several of her works were acquired by the State. In 1908, at the International Industrial Exhibition in Toulouse, she presented an oil on canvas, entitled On the Terrace. India, preserved at the Musée du Quai Branly - Jacques Chirac. In 1910, she made a trip around India which led, upon her return, to her first solo exhibition at the Galerie des Artistes Modernes in Paris. She then established herself on the French art scene as an artist who observed and translated India. During her travels, she met the Tagore family in Calcutta and rubbed shoulders with members of the new school of Bengali painters, particularly Abanindranath Tagore (1871-1951), the leader of the movement. This Bengali School was established in opposition to English colonial domination and the Western, academic art education provided in government art schools established by the British Raj during the 1850s. Its artists claimed a sense of belonging to Indian culture and advocated a return to traditional techniques and motifs. The exchanges that Andrée Karpelès maintained with the members of this new school, pioneers of modern Indian art, had a considerable influence on her artistic practice and her view of the country. She took a stand in their favor in 1914, on the occasion of the 22nd exhibition of French Orientalist Painters at the Grand Palais. Associated with the Indian Society of Oriental Art, she helped to exhibit artists from the Bengal School for the first time in Paris, including the brothers Abanindranath and Gaganendranath (1867-1938), Tagore, and Nandalal Bose (1882-1966).