Osian's Auction Catalogue Indian Modern Fine Arts | June 2017

Lots 8 to 13 Properties formerly from the eminent Family Collections of Zamindar, Art Patron & Indian Railway Board Member Anil Kumar Roy (1899-1975; Lots 8 to 10) & daughter and son-in-law Anjali Roy Niyogi (1925-2008) & Amitabha Niyogi (1916-2002; Lots 11 to 13), Former Chief Secretary, Government of West Bengal (1972-74) Anil Kumar Roy (left) with first President of India, Rajendra Prasad & Railway Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri, who would later become India’s Prime Minister Anil Kumar Roy along with Amitabha Niyogi, who would later become his son-in-law in 1957 Anil Kumar Roy with First President of India, Rajendra Prasad Amitabha Niyogi, Chief Secretary, West Bengal greets H.R.H. The Duke of Edinburgh at Calcutta, c.1973 The Niyogi Family in c.1936 on the lawns of ‘Havelock Sahib’s Bungalow’, their residence in Calcutta The art collector & patron Anil Kumar Roy hailed from a famous Dhaka-based zamindar family. Some of their family mansion and lands were taken over by the Government and helped to add to the sprawling grounds for Dhaka University. He eventually came to hold a prominent and powerful position as Member on the Indian Railway Board in the 1940s into the early 1960s. Anil Kumar Roy’s elder sister’s son Pradyot Kumar Chatterjee was married to Sumitra Tagore (grand daughter of Surendra Nath Tagore, who in turn was the son of Satyendranath Tagore, the brother of Rabindranath Tagore, both being sons of the famous founder of the Brahmo Samaj, Debendranth Tagore). As a result of this family link many relationships with the art community were nurtured, especially with Gaganendranath Tagore, Nandalal Bose & Nicholas Roerich. The Nandalal Bose relationship was also facilitated because of A.K. Roy’s friendship with political leader Jnananjan Niyogi who was an influential Congress voice, and was particularly relevant given his added responsibility to help organize and coordinate the 1938 Haripura Congress Mandals being decorated by the artist and his students. Jnananjan was also Niranjan Niyogi’s younger brother, who in turn was the father to Amitabha Niyogi, who eventually also became the son-in-law to Anil Kumar Roy, after the marriage with his daughter Anjali Roy on 8th June 1957. Further, Devika Rani Chaudhuri’s (niece of Rabindranath Tagore) marriage to Svetoslav Roerich (s/o Nicholas Roerich) in 1945 added another family link to the cordial and professional relationship which had been earlier established with Anil Kumar Roy during extending support towards Roerich’s railway travel by securing special 16 wheelers “saloon” train carriages for certain journeys within India. Further, Amitabha Niyogi (s/o Niranjan & Santana Niyogi) was the nephew of eminent artist Prof. Sudhir Khastgir, who was not just a leading Indian modernist painter himself but one of Abanindranath Tagore & Nandalal Bose’s favourite students, later becoming the first Head of the Art Deprtment at Doon School, Dehradun. Naturally Amitabha’s rise in the IAS leading to his position of the Chief Secretary to the Government of West Bengal (1972- 74) and later as Advisor to the Governor of West Bengal added to his range of interactions with artists & art patrons such as Jamini Roy and Lady Ranu Mookerjee. 26 | Osian’s–Connoisseurs of Art