Tribal wall painting of West Bengal
The grant allowed me to develop my interest in tribal culture and society and painting, and to photographically document tribal art. It will be published by the Council of Cultural Growth and Cultural Relations Cuttack. The grant gave me self-confidence in fieldwork; I use the research in teaching and have inspired colleagues in the subject.
For photographs of Bengali scroll paintings from British collections.
I received the grant during the course of my PhD on the picture story-telling traditions in Bengal and Rajasthan. These are traditions in which itinerant storytellers use scroll paintings to illustrate their storytelling performances. The sterling grant enabled me to order slides of the wonderful scroll paintings, particualrly from the J C French collection in the V&A and British Museum. They were extremely useful, as these paintings are among four or five surviving examples of a superb, lost tradition.
Grant to collect slides and research materials relating to company paintings of Patna, Calcutta and Murshidabad from UK collections
The award facilitated my resarch on company paintings and gave me the crucial direction for my investigation. After this award I received the pre-doctoral Fulbright Fellowship which allowed me to explore the American collections and meet personalities like Stuart Cary Welch, Milo Beach and Vidya Dehejia. And the Visitor's Grant from the British Council created the opportunity to see the best of Company Paintings in the Victoria and Albert Museum and India Office LIbrary, and to meet scholars and curators like Robert Skelton and Deborah Swallow.
