This month marks the 100th anniversary of the death of Fanindra Nath Bose, one of our most significant twentieth-century Academicians. To mark it, we’re supporting his family’s campaign to establish a permanent memorial at his resting place in Liberton Cemetery.
Fanindra Nath Bose’s brief career was both brilliant and historic. Born in East Bengal in 1888, he became the first Asian artist elected to the Academy, and he’s now recognised as one of the first modern Indian sculptors to achieve serious recognition in Britain.
Bose began his artistic training at Calcutta’s Jubilee Art Academy. At just 16, he left India for Europe. Italy didn’t work out as planned, but the journey brought him to Edinburgh, a city where his talent would take root. In 1905 he gained admission to the Edinburgh School of Art. A year later he entered the RSA Life School, where he quickly stood out: in 1907 he was joint winner of the Stuart Prize for figure drawing.
Fanindra Nath Bose ARSA, Sketch of the Triumph of Flora, Pavillion de Flore, the Louvre exterior, 1911.
By 1908, Bose was among the first students at the newly opened Edinburgh College of Art, studying under Percy Portsmouth RSA, Head of Sculpture, who later praised his exquisite craftsmanship, ‘phenomenal control of minutia’ and ‘delicacy and taste’.
Fanindra Nath Bose ARSA's Edinburgh College of Art Diploma
After graduating in 1911 with a Diploma in Sculpture, Bose won a £100 travelling scholarship to France, where his pencil studies of sculptures in Paris and Versailles were later counted among his finest work. He was drawn to Carpeaux, Rodin and Mercié, and may have attended classes at Antoine Bourdelle’s Académie de la Grande Chaumière. Tradition holds that Rodin himself saw and admired the young sculptor’s work.
Fanindra Nath Bose ARSA, Sketch of Le Baiser [The Kiss] by Auguste Rodin, 1911
By 1915 Bose was back in Edinburgh, working with Portsmouth and building a life in Scotland. That year he married Mary “Molly” Buchan Fergusson and was appointed Sculptor to Sir Sayajirao Gaekwad III, the Gaekwar of Baroda. For Baroda, Bose created bronze figures for the Lukshmi Vilas Palace gardens, as well as statuettes for the Baroda Art Gallery. His works such as The Hunter and Boy in Pain attracted attention in Britain, including from the Welsh sculptor Sir William Goscombe John.
His sculpture was admired for its technical assurance, restless movement and textured surfaces, qualities that revealed Rodin’s influence but never reduced Bose to imitation. Today, that combination of precision and modernity helps explain why he’s regarded as a pioneering figure in Indian sculpture.
Fanindra Nath Bose ARSA, Athlete and Hound, c.1923
From his studio at 4 Belford Road in Dean Village, Bose contributed to Scotland’s public art. His surviving works include First World War memorials at Holyrood, Ormiston and St John’s Parish Church, Perth, where his life-size bronze St John the Baptist remains especially striking.
Fanindra Nath Bose ARSA, Plaster maquette for the life size figure of St John the Baptist for the War Memorial Shrine, St Johns Kirk, Perth, c.1923-26.
On 18 March 1925, Bose made history when he was elected an Associate of the Royal Scottish Academy. At a Scottish Arts Club gathering honouring the new Associates, he reflected on tensions between India and Britain, hoping the honour would help ease them and be accepted by his countrymen as much as by himself. Ninety-nine years later, a major gift to the RSA from Bose’s family has created long overdue representation in our collections of a key sculptor in Scottish art history whose life was cut tragically short.
Fanindra Nath Bose ARSA, Male Bust [possibly Leslie Galloway], c. 1908-26
Bose was only 38 when he died suddenly of cardiac arrest while on a fishing holiday near Peebles on 1 August 1926. He was buried in Liberton Cemetery, his funeral attended by leading figures in Scottish art and architecture, including Robert S Lorimer, Portsmouth, Alexander Carrick and Charles d’Orville Pilkington Jackson.
Fanindra Nath Bose ARSA
For decades Bose’s grave remained unmarked. In 2013 it was identified and given a modest marble plaque by Edinburgh sculptor Kenny Munro. Now, on the centenary of Bose’s death, Munro has designed a more substantial monument, and we’re working with Bose’s family, the Indian Consulate and the Scottish Centre of Tagore Studies to crowdfund a permanent memorial to a remarkable sculptor who crossed continents, helped modernise Indian sculpture and left a lasting imprint on Scotland’s artistic story.
Headstone design, Kenny Munro
If you’d like to help support this momentous project, you can learn more about the crowdfunder here.
Related artist
About the author
Sandy Wood
Sandy Wood is Head of Collections at the RSA. He is responsible for the management, care of, and access to the RSA’s uniquely formed collection, Recognised as a collection of National Significance to Scotland.
Sandy joined the RSA in 2003 after graduating in Fine Art from Gray’s School of Art, Aberdeen, later completing a Masters in Museum Studies at the University of Leicester. Of particular interest to him are the stories woven between historic and contemporary practice and practitioners, artistic lineage and legacy, and the revealing of art through process and artistic voice.
