Home and the World: Sundaram Tagore goes Global

In an America which is increasingly insular and inward-looking, there is an Indian immigrant from Calcutta who celebrates diversity and embraces global cultures in New York.

A descendent of the great Rabindranath Tagore, Sundaram Tagore is an Oxford-
educated art historian, gallerist, and an award-winning filmmaker. This year marks 25
years of ground-breaking work, always promoting an East-West dialogue among artists,
art lovers and nations.

Rabindranath Tagore worked tirelessly through his life encouraging others to break free
from “narrow domestic walls,” as he put it, through social justice and a universalism that
merged the best ideas of East and West. Ta he family legacy is the world university
Viswa Bharti founded in 1921 in Santiniketan, based on humanism and a cross-cultural
ethos. Sundaram does the same through the language of art in his galleries in New
York, Singapore and London.

Sundaram’s father, Subhagendranath, known as Subho, was the great-grandson of
Maharshi Debendranath Tagore, Rabindranath’s older brother. Subho was one of
India’s first modernist painters, a poet and a magazine publisher. His art magazine was
named Sundaram, and when he got a son, he named him Sundaram.

The Tagore family was entrenched in traditional art and culture, and young Subho
rebelled against that, leaving the ancestral home in Jorasanko at the age of 26. After
living the Bohemian life in London, he distanced himself from the Bengal School, which
dominated the art scene in India, and formed the Calcutta Group in 1943 with Nirode
Mazumdar and other young artists such as Gopal Ghose and Kamala Das Gupta,
merging styles of the East and West in his work.

Like his father, Sundaram has always been drawn into the lure of many cultures, the
forks in the road, rather than the traditional path. The son of an Assamese mother and
having lived in varied cultures, he is at home in all.
“I’ve lived in eight different countries and in countless cities across the globe. The global
exposure, combined with my Indian heritage has changed my outlook profoundly,”
admits Sundaram.

“I currently live in New York, arguably the most global, multicultural and intellectually
dynamic city in the world. It’s a postmodern experiment in coexistence, in hybridity and
in rethinking identity. So, it made complete sense to build a gallery here that is
dedicated to cross-cultural dialogue and to art that transcends borders.”

When Sundaram opened his first gallery on Greene Street in SoHo in 2000, his mission
was to show that some of the best, most meaningful art was being created by artists
deeply engaged in cross-cultural explorations, artists of color, often ignored by the art
world.

In the blink of an eye 25 years have passed, and this year his gallery, now in the chic
new art district of Chelsea, is celebrating its milestone anniversary. There are no
borders at Sundaram Tagore’s eponymous gallery in Chelsea for on its walls you’ll see
the work of artists from countries as far apart as South Korea, Morocco, Iran and the
US. Tagore has gone ever more global in his embrace of artists whose work defies
cultural and geographic demarcations in their cross-cultural dialogue. Earlier he had
opened galleries in Los Angeles and Hong Kong, and currently he has two galleries in
New York, in Singapore and in London. He shows the art in all the major shows and
festivals internationally.

To mark this signature year, the Sundaram Tagore Gallery has mounted a landmark
exhibit of paintings, sculptures, photography and installations by more than thirty artists
who each share a humanity in their complex creations. These noted artists include Miya
Ando, Fre Ilgen, Ricardo Mazel, Golnaz Fathi, Nathan Slate Joseph, Trishla Jain, Susan
Weil, Lee Waisler, Hiroshi Senju, Sohan Qadri, Steve McCurry and Judith Murray.

Art lovers, friends and collectors had gathered for a joyful celebration to mark this
milestone anniversary, and events are to follow in the Sundaram Tagore Gallery in
Singapore as well as the one reopening in London in a new location in the spring.

Art is indeed the great unifier and proves that entire worlds can all be squeezed into the
confines of one room. As Tagore points out in the sumptuous book published on the 25 th
anniversary, “With every exhibition, our goal is to spark dialogue -to use art as a vehicle
to bring people together and remind them that more unites us than separates us.”
Sundaram is also an avid writer on art and an award-winning filmmaker. who had the
opportunity to interact with the great filmmaker, Satyajit Ray, as well as others. He has
made The Poetics of Color about the artist Natvar Bhavsar about 20 years ago which
was well received in the film festival circle. He next produced Louis Kahn’s Tiger City,
which debuted at the Museum of Modern Art. He is currently working on Art Matters, a
short narrative film with actors Nandita Das and Linus Roache.

He says, “I feel deeply connected to the story we have told, and in the way Nandita and
Linus and the rest of the team have brought it to life. It makes me hopeful that it can
spark some important conversations because in the end, it's not just about making art,
it's about making sure that art matters in all its complexity, diversity and truth. “

Face to Face with Sundaram Tagore

I had first interviewed Sundaram Tagore in the 80’s when he had not yet opened his
galleries and was a Director of South Asian art at the Pace Wildenstein Gallery. I sat
down with him again, 25 years later, to discuss his art journey.
Excerpts from the interview:
How important has Rabindranath Tagore legacy been in your life? Any memories
you can share?

Rabindranath Tagore’s legacy has had a profound and deep personal influence on my
life, not just through the artistic and literary genius, but through the broader cultural,
philosophical and ethical questions that he raised, which shaped family for generations,
and the fact that he always talked about social responsibility. Not to just function in
isolation but always consider the disadvantaged.

This has been a deeply influential thought process throughout the family, even now.
Regarding its influence, I would say that the story of the legacy doesn’t begin with
Rabindranath alone. It goes back to his grandfather, one of the earliest Indian
industrialists and financiers, who laid the foundation for modern banking and railway
and shipping in India. He was a visionary ahead of his time, an entrepreneur,
philanthropist and cosmopolitan, who built bridges between East and West at a time
when such exchanges were rare.

So, as you can understand, Rabindranath, in many ways, was a synthesis of this
lineage of his grandfather and his father, who was a deeply spiritual being. So, the
Tagore household was an extraordinary environment, a place where East and West,
tradition and modernity, art, literature, music and social reform thrived.
I was born in the 60s, so it was my father who was essentially the last of the Tagore to
grow up in that house. And being a rebellious individual, he had many interactions with
Rabindranath Tagore—some on a confrontational level. 

Can you share any anecdote to show his interactions with the older Tagores?

One interesting story that I know from my father, he had just come back from England
and bought this car called Lancia Lambda, and he would speed through the streets. And
in order to get to drive, he went to Chandanagar, a French enclave in Bengal. When he
came back, his car wasn’t functioning as well, so he got together directly below the main
house where all his cousins and friends and family members gathered, and he was
banging away the car to try and fix it. Rabindranath Tagore opened the window and
said, “Who is making that racket?”

Once he went inside after shutting the window, my father told his brother, Rathindranath
Tagore, who is a son of Rabindranath, “At least I managed to stop the old man from
writing another epic!” That story makes me laugh because it shows no matter who you
are or how important you are, family dynamics are as they are.
But in all seriousness, our family has never focused on wealth accumulation. They had
a lot of wealth at one point, but they have always emphasized social regeneration,
believing in the imperative to uplift the underprivileged and serve a greater collective
purpose. 

How did your father continue Rabindranath Tagore’s legacy?

That spirit was embodied in many ways by my father, Subho Tagore, the founder
member of the Calcutta Group, which was India first collective. And this was formed
soon after he returned from England after interacting with some of the folks from the
Bloomsbury Group in London. My father was an artist, a poet, a bohemian, who
continued the Tagore legacy in its commitment to humility, accessibility and social
conscience. In short, Rabindranath Tagore’s legacy is not just historical, it’s lived, felt
and practiced in our daily lives.

Sundaram Tagore, you are that rare Indian gallerist who promotes not only Indian
art, but also global artists and sculptures, and you celebrate life and Indian spirit.
How did that come about?

I would say it really stems from understanding the Indian identity at its core is inherently
pluralistic and deeply cosmopolitan. If you look at Indian history, from the ancient
Aryans to the to the Greeks and Scythians and central Asians and Arabs, and later the
Europeans, such as the Dutch, the Danes, the Portuguese, the French and the English,
all have been part of India in some form. India has always been also a crossroads of
cultures. So, miscegenation, both genetics and culture, has been the norm, not the
exception. We have not only absorbed external influences, but we have also enriched
and transformed them. India has long been part of a global dialog, trading ideas, aesthetics, and philosophies across continents. So, in that context, what I’m doing as a gallerist, in a small way, is nothing radical. Its just a natural extension of that tradition unfolding. 

What has been the biggest challenge of operating international galleries
promoting diverse artists and marching to your own drummer?

One of the biggest challenges has been navigating the tension between artistic vision
and the commercial realities of global art market when you’re committed to promoting
culturally diverse, often underrepresented voices and creating a space for genuine
cross-cultural dialog, you’re often going against the grain of what is considered
marketable or fashionable in the mainstream art world, especially at the top end, where
it can be very trend driven.

There’s often pressure to conform to established taste or represent artists that cater to a
narrow collector demographic, but I’ve always chosen to champion artists whose work
has cultural, philosophical or historical depth, even if they don’t fit neatly into the market.
Prioritizing can be a tough road financially and logistically, especially when operating
across multiple countries with vastly different audiences, economies and regulatory
systems.

There’s also the challenge of educating audiences or indigenous communities, and in
some ways, it can be a challenge staying true to a vision that’s not defined by market
forces. That requires resilience. There are moments of doubt, there are definitely
financial pressures, but I believe that art has a role far beyond decoration or investment.
It is a tool for dialogue, for empathy, for expanding the way we see the world, and that
belief continues to guide everything we do at Sundaram Tagore Gallery. 

So, at a time when America is closing its doors and becoming more inward
looking, you are celebrating diversity and openness.

Yes, and I see that as not just a choice, but a responsibility. At a time when the
divisiveness, nationalism and fear of ‘other’ are rising globally, not just in America, it
becomes even more essential to create spaces that celebrate the differences, fosters
dialogue, and reminds us of our shared humanity.

(Lavina Melwani is a New York based journalist for several publications and blogs
at Lassi with Lavina. This interview first appeared in The Week.)