A w a i t i n g T r i n d a d e ' s h o m e c o m i n g FOCUS/Pamela D'Mello dmello.pam...@gmail.com
THERE IS something lamentable in the long , yet unfinished sage of Antonio Xavier Trindade's extant art-works, as they continue to await a homecoming. One calls it a homecoming, because the collection of 60 paintings, watercolours and sketches, are slated to eventually find a place in Goa, Trindade's home state. It was a cherished dream of Trindade's two daughters -- Ester and Angela -- to have a permanent gallery for those of his works that had remained with the family. Trindade's grandchildren called a good number that were put up for auction at the Sotheby's in 1992. They are now part of a collection that was handed over to the Fundacao Oriente, a Portuguese foundation active in cultural initiatives in Goa, around five years back. The foundation has undertaken to have them suitably housed and displayed. It will still take a couple of years, before an adequate gallery is readied. Several sights have been surveyed and dismissed as unsuitable. By all accounts, it's been a labourious process. Prior to Fundacao Oriente's initiative, a museum was scheduled to open in 1997, but for various reasons did not. In the meanwhile, anyone desirous of viewing the Trindade collection would have to travel to Lisbon, where they are now with the Fundacao Oriente. Coinciding with the July 14 to July 16 Lusofonia Games in Lisbon -- involving Portugal's former estados -- the foundation will exhibit the works once again. Considered national treasures, a couple of Trindade's works are at Mumbai's Prince of Wales Museum. The privately-owned painting will come up for auction now and again. Probably, a few still hang at Casa Bianca, the home the Trindades built at Mahim, Mumbai, where the family lived for many years, while Trindade taught and was later superintendent at the JJ School of Arts, from 1898 until his retirement at the age of 55 in 1925. A good deal of his works were commissions from the Western and Indian elites in those days. Paintings of his household and family members, friends, neighbours, itinerant sadhus and fakirs, remained in his personal collection. Family accounts speak of a generous man, known to give away paintings to his doctors and caregivers when both his feet were amputated shortly before his demise in 1935. Some of Trindade's other works were pawned or sold to provide for his family of wife and eight children, during lean periods in Mumbai. Trindade was probably in his late teens when he enrolled at the JJ School of Arts in Mumbai around 1887. Instructed in classical European techniques and academic naturalism, Trindade went on to become a leading portrait painter -- counted among the most significant artists of early 20th century Indian art. "The depth of psychological perception and purity of tones found in his oil paintings prompted one contemporary writer to call him the 'Rembrandt of the East'...," writes Professor Bradley Tindall in a 1996 Georgia Museum of Art exhibition catalogue. In an image of undated oil, titled 'Forsaken', the hopeless despair of the forlorn woman in the painting is almost palpable. Not surprisingly, images of the 'Forsaken' illustrate more than a few references of Trindade's oeuvre. His famed ability to bring out the simple sweetness of some of his subjects is simply breathtaking, even looking at images of a 1930 painting titled 'Mrs Miranda and child', or a 1925 oil 'Miss Ferns, A Writer', or 'The Armenian Sisters' (1932). Parts of the Trindade collection were restored in the United States, and exhibited at the Georgia Museum before the family came scouting to Goa for a suitable permanent exhibition site. Why Goa? Not only was Trindade born (1870) and brought up here, before he left for Sawantwadi and soon Mumbai for higher studies, but also like most Goans of his time, he returned often. His upbringing and Westernisation as a Goan Catholic, besides underpinning family life, influenced his work and informs his style. "Because of his religious background, Trindade was perhaps unique among his compatriots for his penetrating versions of Christian themes," writes Tindall. The nostalgia and deep sentiment he had towards his native land and its people come through in a 1930 oil, 'Goan Fishing Boats at Low Tide'. [The Asian Age]