JUNE 30, 2019 • THE WEEK 75sions? Is the “premonition” aspect simply a superim-
posed idea since we are seeing the painting in hind-
sight? And, who has seen the original 1946 painting,
and to what extent was it further developed?
“We at Rashtrapati Bhavan only have this one
painting which came here around 1951,” says a staff -
er associated with the museums and art collection
at Rashtrapati Bhavan. Th e staff er was involved in
physically shifting the 380x380cm painting to the
cultural centre in 2014 from the grand staircase area
where it was fi rst displayed for more than a decade.
“We have not seen the original 1946 painting and we
do not know who owns it,” he says. “But it is true that
the idea of this painting was conceived even before
Gandhi’s assassination. I have seen an article by
Gopalkrishna Gandhi which confi rms this.”
When THE WEEK reached out to Gopalkrishna
Gandhi, former West Bengal governor and the son
of Devdas Gandhi, he humbly revealed that an error
had been pointed out in an article he wrote extolling
the Rashtrapati Bhavan painting on January 30, 2016,
in the Hindustan Times, that the painting in question
was completed after the assassination in 1948 and
there was another one painted in 1946. Th e error
was fl agged by US-based
art historian Sumathi
Ramaswamy. Considering
that the information on the
painting on the Rashtra-
pati Bhavan website was
last updated in 2014, and
the HT article appeared in
2016, is there a cataloguing
error which is perpetuating
an unconfi rmed theory?
Ramaswamy, professor
of history and internation-
al comparative studies at
Duke University, North
Carolina, has done a fair
bit of research on both the
paintings. According to her research,
the 1948 painting was brought to
India in January 1950 when Topolski
was invited by Nehru for the Repub-
lic Day celebrations. She has noticed
diff erences in the two paintings even
though there are several similar
elements. “Notice the presence, in
the bottom right of the canvas [in
the 1946 painting], of a disembodied
hand with a smoking gun pointing
towards us,” she says. “In the 1948
painting, notice a dark fi gure has
been placed behind the gun.” She
adds that there were attempts on
Gandhi’s life in 1946 as well, and that
explains the gun. Was Topolski aware
of that? Ramaswamy, too, has not
seen the 1946 painting in its original
form, but she hopes to uncover more
details soon.
She might have a lead from the
artist’s daughter Teresa Topolski.
Teresa confi rms that the frontispiece
in Sketches of Gandhi is an authentic
reproduction of the 1946 painting.
Th e original, she says, resides with
a certain Burstyn family in Canada.
Th at is all she says she knows. About
the so-called prescient nature of her
father’s painting, she would rather
not ruminate much: “I do not have an
opinion on the painting. How could
I? Feliks himself did not confi rm or
deny, he was not Cassandra.”MYSTERIOUS
STROKES
(Above) Topolski’s1946
painting of Gandhi;
(left) the reworked
painting displayed at the
Rashtrapati BhavanCOURTESY:THE ESTATE OF FELIKS TOPOLSKIScan this QR
code or go to
https://youtu.
be/xrDy38LElig
for an exclusive
video story on the
paintings