‘Richard the𝐆 poet, painter, photographer, art critic and above all, a true friend to us all – the artists. I met him in his poetry, became familiar with his paintings and we clicked as long-time friends.’

 – M.F. Husain (R. Bartholomew, The Art Critic, Bart, 2012, back cover)

Richard Bartholomew was born in Burma (now Myanmar) in 1926 and lived there until his family fled to India following the Japanese occupation in 1945. Bartholomew received a bachelor’s degree in 1948 and a master’s degree in 1950, both in English literature, from St. Stephen’s College, Delhi. While teaching English at the Modern School, New Delhi for seven years following his education, Bartholomew wrote for Thought Magazine, the Statesman, Indian Express, Times of India and Vak. In 1962, he became the chief art critic for The Times of India and contributed to various catalogues, anthologies and journals such as the Lalit Kala Contemporary. In ᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ𒀱ᩚᩚᩚ1970, Bartholomew traveled to New York as a Rockefeller Fellow, where he was exposed to the artist community in the city.

For over three decades, Bartholomew remained professionally and personally connected to the Indian modern art community, visiting artists’ studios and befriending them, becoming their advocates in the international art scene, and developing a corpus of scholarly and analytical writing when very few critics paid attention to the regionꦡ. A visionary, Bartholomew recorded the early careers of the most prominent South Asian artists before they achieved recognition: Francis Newton Souza, Sayed Haider Raza, Krishen Khanna, Bhupen Khakhar, Tyeb Mehta, Ram Kumar, Akbar Padamsee, Jyoti Bha𒊎tt, Satish Gujral, and more.

Above all, Bartholomew championed his dear friend, Maqbool Fida Husain, shown here in a contemplative portrait. Bartholomew’s camera was just as constant a chronicler as his pen. ‘[His photography] recorded the working conditions and the exhibitionary practiceꦬs in the artistic avant-garde of the sixties and seventies, and, less consciously, served as a window into his passionate yet contemplative life. A characteristic feature in his images is the interplay of light and shadow, used both aesthetically and as an invitation to explore meaning and metaphor… In these revealing-yet-unobtrusive portraits of artists – at parties, at work, in repose and in thought – we see a glimpse of what it was like to be an artist then.’ (‘Richard Bartholomew,’ MAP Academy, 21 April 2022) 

Largely a private pursuit, compared to his public written ventures, Bartholomew’s deepl🥀y personal body of photography ‘portray a powerful sense of the quiet, cosmopolitan bohemianism of their author and his circle. Never intended ⛄for exhibition, they seem haunted by the ghost of the photographer, standing there behind the lens, using his camera to try to stitch together a world where parochial tradition has lost its grip; one where making, reading, and talking about art are paramount and inseparable.’ (A. Keefe, ‘Critics’ Picks: Richard Bartholomew’, Art Forum, January 2009)