Kramrisch, Stella, 1898-1993

As a teacher, lecturer, curator and prolific writer, Stella Kramrisch (1898-1993) devoted nearly 70 years to the study and appreciation of Indian art. In remembering Kramrisch, Thomas Lawton, the former deputy director of the Freer Gallery of Art, observed that “all students of Indian culture must acknowledge an intellectual indebtedness” to Kramrisch’s numerous and highly original scholarly contributions.

Stella Kramirsch was born May 29, 1898 in the Moravian town of Nikolsburg (now Mikulov), Austria. When she was about ten years old, her family moved to Vienna. Her early years of education there included Greek, Latin and German philosophy, which introduced her to Indian literature. At the University of Vienna, Kramrisch complimented her studies in art history with courses on Sanskrit, and with the completion of her dissertation on early Buddhist sculpture in India, she received her doctoral degree in 1919. That same year, Kramrisch was invited to lecture at Oxford University. While in England, she met the Bengali writer and philosopher Rabindranath Tagore, who was Asia’s first Nobel Laureate, having received the Nobel Prize in literature in 1913. At that time, Tagore was involved in establishing an international university that would bring together scholars from East and West cultures. The university, which is known today as Visva Bharati, was located in the town of Santiniketan in West Bengal, India, and Tagore invited Kramrisch to go there to teach at Kala Bhavan, the university’s College of Fine Arts and Crafts. Accepting the offer, Kramrisch sailed to India in 1920 and taught Indian art and a survey of Western art at the college. In 1923 she left Bengal and joined the faculty at the University of Calcutta, becoming its first professor of Indian Art. The following year, Kramrisch published her first book, Principles of Indian Art, (translated from German), which prominent contemporary scholars highly praised. From 1937 to 1940, Kramrisch spent part of each year in London lecturing at the Courtlauld Institute.

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