Angela Trindade

Adding to the Archive

Fundacao Oriente, located in the traditional neighbourhood in Panjim, is home to the Trindade collection since 2012. The paintings include works by Antonio Xavier de Trindade and his daughter Angela.  Fundacao Oriente commissioned the historian Fatima de Silva Gracias, who has a doctorate in Indo-Portuguese history, to write monographs on the artists.  Fatima delivered scholarly work in the following books: ‘Faces of Colonial India - The work of Goan Artist Antonio Xavier de Trindade’ (2014) and ‘Angela Trindade –A Trinity of Light, Colour and Emotion’ (2016).  In this article, we take a peek at Fatima’s monograph on Angela Trindade, one of the pioneering women artists of modern art in India.

The writing familiarizes the reader with Angela’s life and works in India and the US.  Beginning from her childhood (born 1909 in Mumbai), Fatima chronicles the influences of her renowned father, the cultural milieu of Bombay and her Goan roots into her making of an artist. Deftly folding the locales of Mumbai, Fatima paints a vibrant picture of the first half of 20^th century India. When Angela came of age, after graduating from Sir JJ School of Arts, she stepped into a vibrant environment of the first flowerings of the enculturation movement (i.e. the adaptation of Christian liturgy to a non-Christian cultural background).

Fatima’s chapter on Sir JJ School of Art spectacularly delineates the hallowed history of the establishment. From its conception, there have been a number of variations in its curriculum under different directors and Fatima gives the reader enlightening information towards the working of the institution. It’s interesting to gauge the rising trends in Indianisation of the arts with a landmark change during 1920s, when William Eewart Gladstone Solomon took over as principal and stepped up the work started by Lockwood Kipling and John Griffiths  towards Indian motifs and folk elements in art.

Angela’s creditable performance in Sir JJ School of Arts (where her father had been a teacher/artist for two decades) led her to earn fellowships. She soon started experimenting with Indian folk art - a direct contradiction to her base in Western portraiture that she had inherited from her father (who’s famousl y known as ‘Rembrandt of the East’). Fatima writes, “Angela was one of the pioneers of Indian art with Christian religious themes. She became part of the group of artists who worked towards the Indianisation of the Christ story. As forerunners of the movement, the group encountered severe criticism.”

The author traces Angela’s journey from JJ to US where she, successfully painted portraits of national icons including  Gandhi, Tagore and Nehru in India and President Kennedy and President Ford in the US. Beyond portraiture, she became renowned for her evocative works of the Madonna and Christian themes in Indian style. The flat surface of the Indian style painting imbued her work with greater simplicity and emotion. A critical commentary by the author states, “Angela used warm earthy colours and portrayed Mary as a dusky, almond-eyed Indian adorning a colourful sari in various Indian settings. At times, Baby Jesus is shown in a dhoti, like Krishna. Diyas, charpoys, motifs from Ajanta paintings, mudras and lotus flowers replace western representations. Jesus is colorfully depicted in flowing, saffron robes along with his disciples.”

“On migrating to US, where she discovered that her Indianized themes were not appreciated, Angela turned her attention to Tantric art and Abstract Expressionism. Only in abstraction could she finally marry the Eastern and Western influences in her art”, writes Fatima. Abstract Expressionism, a major art movement in 40s New York School (practiced by the famous Dutch born artist Willem de Kooning and Jackson Pollock) inspired her greatly. She began expressing herself exclusively in form and color: an eternal striving for inner growth and spirituality parlayed into Tantric symbolism. Finally, she scaled a peak when she evolved her own idiom of ‘Trinidadism’ Triangle of Tantra and the Christian symbol of Trinity coalesced into the symbol of a triangle, which she then used to depict gods and humans alike. Fatima follows her trajectory through ‘life in triangles.’

The author further extends the scope of her book to include the lives of Angela’s contemporaries and the cultural ferment of the era. The Progressive Artists Group (PAG), which included modern artists such as  MF Hussain, VS Gaitonde, Angelo de Fonseca, Ram Kumar and SH Raza finds a mention in her writing. It is interesting to learn how they interacted and exchanged ideas - taking cues from Western art while creating their own language to etch their canvases. Amrita Sher-Gil, one of the nine jewels of India, and well known for her paintings ‘Hill Women’ and ‘Group of Three Girls’ inspired Angela to paint women depicting sisterhood, an element  quite overlooked in Indian paintings.        

The author recounts her own journey into Angela’s world through the artist’s notepads, letters, newspaper stories and inputs from her close family. Angela’s nephews and nieces living in different parts of the world became an extended family in the process of making of the books and lent a depth of knowledge about her personal life. It is remarkable to note that she was an expert in diverse fields of carpentry, upholstery, sewing, cooking and music. The restoration work that she did on her father’s works is praiseworthy. A warm-spirited person, she was very affectionate and bonded with her siblings and their families, leaving behind stories of love and happiness.

Through the prism of research and interactions, the book paints a vibrant picture of the artistic-cultural ethos of India, more so of Bombay from the last century. The language is lucid and except for duplication of information at certain points, the delivery is cogent and systematic.

Besides the biography of Angela, an interested reader has lots to engage with historically in the book. The paintings along with descriptive text become an art masterclass further extending the boundaries of the monograph.