Walter Langhammer

Born in 1905 in Graz, Austria, Walter Langhammer was an academic painter educated at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna. As an active member of socialist groups and the art circles in the city in the late 1920s and 1930s, Langhammer makes for an unlikely inclusion in the Modern and Contemporary South Asian art category. His close connection to the region arose from his time in Bombay in the late 1930s, where he and his wife, Kathe, fled to and sought refuge due to her Jewish origin and political affiliations. A remarkable newcomer to the modern art scene of Bombay, Langhammer won the Gold Medal of the Bombay Art Society in 1939. It was during these early years when he became the art director of the Times of India, a role that would propel him into the world of modern artists in the city. Critics like Rudi von Leyden, gallerist Kekoo Gandhy, and young artists such as Sayed Haider Raza, Krishnaji Howlaji Ara, Kattingeri Krishna Hebbar and Vasudeo Santu Gaitonde met at the Langhammers’ home every Sunday to discuss and assess art.

Quite naturally, Langhammer amassed many students within Bombay’s modern artist community. ‘Raza credited Langhammer with helping him develop an awareness of form through the analysis of paintings. “You have to practically dissect the paintings,” Raza recalled Langhammer saying. “You must be able to say exactly what differentiates a Matisse from a Picasso or a Monet from a Cezanne.”’ (A. Wilmes, ‘Walter Langhammer and the Illumination of India,’ 2016, accessed 22/9/22, https://www.lbi.org/news/walter-langhammer-india/)