Sotheby’s To Auction Part of Dartington's Tagore Collection

A selection of 12 paintings from The Dartington Hall Trust’s Collection by the celebrated Bengali artist and poet Rabindranath Tagore is to go on sale at Sotheby’s annual sale of Indian Art in London on Tuesday 15th June 2010. Funds raised by the sale will be used to support the Trust’s ambitious new plans to expand its charitable programmes in the arts, social justice and sustainability.

Born in Calcutta in 1861, Tagore was perhaps the most important literary figure of Bengali literature and the first non-European to win the Noble Prize in Literature. An ambassador for India and its culture, his international influence and popularity was considerable and could arguably be compared to that of Ghandi, who himself referred to the artist and poet as ‘Mahatma’. Tagore started painting relatively late in his life, but this did not prevent him from becoming one of India’s most esteemed Modern artists. Sotheby’s has a successful track record of selling works by Tagore and set an auction record for a work by him when his ‘Death Scene’ sold for £120,000 in May 2008. However, works by Tagore are relatively rare to the auction market, and this group of paintings unquestionably ranks as one of the most important collections of works by the much-loved Indian artist ever to come to the market.

The 12 paintings presented for sale have a pre-sale combined estimate in the region of £250,000.

The Dartington Hall Trust recently announced an ambitious investment of £15 million to develop a series of new initiatives on the estate over the coming years. These include the launch of a new arts development space, expansion of Schumacher College and building an innovative retirement community called the Abundant Life Project. Funds for this investment will come from the sale of some of the Trust’s assets, as well as fundraising.

Vaughan Lindsay, Chief Executive Officer of the Dartington Hall Trust, said: “We’ve recently announced an ambitious new programme of investment in our estate to ensure that Dartington remains a centre for innovation and new ideas. Dartington has always been a place of experimentation. Through our new initiatives, we hope the estate will continue to grow and evolve, as it has done over the last 85 or so years. The proceeds from the sale of the these 12 Tagore paintings will be an integral part of our new expansion plans for the future. Finding the space to exhibit these beautiful works has been a challenge for us and we hope their sale will allow them to be enjoyed to their full potential by a wider audience and hopefully by art lovers on the sub-continent.”

Dartington Hall has strong ties to Tagore. Leonard Elmhirst was a close friend of Tagore after the pair met in the US while Leonard was attending Cornell University. After graduating from Cornell in 1921, Leonard travelled to India to work as Tagore’s private secretary. He not only travelled the world with Tagore, but also created a department for rural reconstruction on an estate belonging to the Tagore family. His experiences of India and the abiding influence of the Indian artist would shape his vision for the educational, social and rural experiment he and Dorothy created at Dartington a few years later.

Tagore visited Dartington on a number of occasions and, in addition to his paintings, Dartington holds a huge archive of photographs, letters and other ephemera relating to the artist and his relationship with Dartington, all of which will remain part of Dartington’s extensive archives.

The Dartington Hall Trust has a series of events planned in 2011 to celebrate the 150th birth anniversary of Tagore. The Tagore 150 Festival will take place at Dartington from May 1 to 7, 2011, during which time it is planned the 12 paintings will be temporarily returned to Dartington for exhibit. For more information on the Tagore 150 Festival email tagorefestival@resurgence.org