Mahatma Gandhi's only known portrait in oil paint to go under the hammer

Hindustan Times

3 days ago

In July, an oil painting of Mahatma Gandhi made by Clare Leighton, an artist renowned for her wood engravings, will be auctioned for the first time — believed to be the only oil portrait of the Mahatma. Portrait of Mahatma Gandhi will form part of Bonhams' Travel and Exploration Sale to be held online between July 7 and 15. The 30 1/8 x 25' canvas is priced between GBP 50,000 and 70,000 ( ₹ 58 lakh and ₹81 lakh).
Leighton, who met Gandhi in London in 1931, even made a drawing of him while he was asleep. How did this painting come to be? And what did Gandhi think of it? Let's find out.
Towards the end of August 1931, Mahatma Gandhi and a group of hopeful men and women seeking independence for India, buoyed by the success of the Dandi March and the salt satyagraha, boarded a ship for England to attend the Second Round Table Conference. The conference, however, was a tense one, as arch negotiator Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi found himself at odds with members of his own delegation — drawn from the princely order, the landlords, the titled gentry and the leaders of Hindu groups — as well as battling the hardened colonialists who were not interested in his demand for self-governance and an Indian Constitution. The conference lasted a few months, but amidst the tense negotiations, Gandhi decided to do the 'real round table work' and get to know the people of England.
On social reformer Muriel Lester's invitation, he stayed at the community centre in Kingsley Hall in East End, took his morning walks in its streets and made friends with the children, to whom he became 'Uncle Gandhi'. He also met several people, from the cotton mill workers of Lancashire, heavily impacted by his Swadeshi movement to political activists who were sympathetic to the cause. Even Nobel Prize-winning physicist Albert Einstein wrote to him during his time in London —'We may hope that your example will spread beyond the borders of your country', he said. It was during this time that Gandhi met Leighton and sculptor Jo Davidson, both of whom took the opportunity to get Gandhi to model for them. (Davidson's bronze bust of Gandhi is now in the permanent collection of the Tokyo Fuji Art Museum).
She returned to oil paints rarely — Gandhi's portrait being one occasion. In November 1931, the artist exhibited this painting at the Albany Galleries in Sackville Street, London. According to press reports, Gandhi did not attend the exhibition, but the event drew the attention of many powerful people including 'Members of Parliament and ex-Members, artists, journalists and art critics … dignified figures of some of the chief Hindu representatives… Mrs (Sarojini) Naidu, the statesman-poet... and Sir Purshotamdas Thakurdas, one of the Mahatma's colleagues'. The oil portrait occupied pride of place, and was presented on an easel.
Saddened by the result of the conference, Gandhi left London on December 5, 1931 and declined invitations to visit America and Europe. He only agreed to spend a few days in Switzerland with his biographer Romain Rolland, and visited the Vatican before returning to India on December 28. Within a week, he was imprisoned and the Civil Disobedience movement was resumed.
But Gandhi did not let political events get in the way of social niceties. His long-time associate and secretary Mahadev Desai wrote a letter to Leighton in December 1931 which thanked her for her painting. 'It was such a pleasure to have had you here for many mornings doing Mr Gandhi's portrait. I am sorry I didn't see the final result, but many of my friends who saw it in the Albany Gallery said to me that it was a good likeness. I am quite sure Mr Gandhi has no objection to its being reproduced,' he wrote.
The Bonhams website explains that the painting was also shown in 1978 as part of the Boston Public Library's exhibition, Clare Leighton: American Sheaves English Seed Corn. The work showed clear signs of restoration. The Lyman Allyn Museum Conservation Laboratory had repaired tears in several places — according to the artist's family, the painting was attacked by a religious zealot in 1974. The work remained in the family after Leighton's death in 1989.