Andrée Karpeles (1885–1956) View Of A Mountain In Sonnarmag, Himalayas, India, Oil On Canvas

Andrée KARPELES
Paris 1885 – Cannes 1956

View of a Mountain in Sonarmag, Kashmir Region, Himalayan Range
Circa 1910
Oil on burlap
Inscribed in pencil "Andrée Karpelès" on the stretcher
Titled "Sonarmag" on the back of the canvas and numbered "49 "
34 x 41 cm
Provenance: Private collection, Grasse (the artist’s city of residence)
Very good condition

Works by Andrée Karpelès are rare on the market, as are paintings depicting Himalayan landscapes in general.

Andrée Karpelès (Paris, 1885 – Grasse, 1956) was a key figure in promoting contemporary Indian art on the French art scene. A childhood spent between Calcutta and Paris opened the doors to India for her and instilled in her, as well as in her sister Suzanne—a future Indologist—a love for South Asia. Suzanne Karpelès (1890–1968) was more interested in Cambodia, enrolling at the École française d’Extrême-Orient in 1922 before becoming curator of the Royal Library of Cambodia in Phnom Penh.
Andrée Karpelès, for her part, embarked on an artistic career, devoting herself from the outset to depicting landscapes and scenes of everyday Indian life. Beginning in 1906, she exhibited almost every year at the National Salon of Fine Arts, the Autumn Salon, 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 titled *Sur la Terrasse. Indes*, now in the collection of the Musée du Quai Branly – Jacques Chirac. In 1910, she traveled to India, which led to her first solo exhibition at the Galerie des Artistes Modernes. From then on, she established herself on the French art scene as an attentive observer and interpreter of India.
During her travels, she met the Tagore family in Calcutta and rubbed shoulders with members of the new Bengali School of painting, particularly Abanindranath Tagore (1871–1951), the movement’s leader. This Bengal School had formed in opposition to British colonial rule and the Western academic art education provided by the public art schools established by the British Raj in the 1850s. These artists asserted their connection to Indian culture and advocated a return to traditional techniques and motifs. Andrée Karpelès’s interactions with members of this new school, pioneers of modern Indian art, had a considerable influence on her artistic practice and her vision 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. As a member of the Indian Society of Oriental Art, she helped bring artists from the Bengal School to Paris for the first time, notably the brothers Abanindranath and Gaganendranath (1867–1938) Tagore and Nandalal Bose (1882–1966).