Richard Bartholomew

Bartholomew worked between 1926 and 1985 across photographer and writer. This article rests on 11 published texts and 55 scholarly references drawn from named institutional registers. Every statement below returns to a source shown in the evidence panel; where the record is silent or divided, the article says so instead of resolving it.

• Name — Richard Bartholomew • Birth Name — Ko Thein Pe • Born — 29 November 1926 • Birthplace — Tavoy, Burma, British India • Died — 11 January 1985 • Place of death — New Delhi, India • Occupation — Art critic • Citizenship — India • Spouse — Rati Batra • Children — Pablo Robin • Website — www.bartholomew.tv

Richard Bartholomew fled from Tavoy (Dawei), Burma (Myanmar), where he was born, during the Second World War. To escape the Japanese capture of Burma and the imminent persecution on account of their Christian names, Bartholomew fled with his family, walking the General Stilwell Road from Mandalay to Ledo in upper Assam, India. His schooling at St. Paul's School in Rangoon (Yangon) was interrupted because of the Japanese invasion and Bartholomew finished high school at Delhi's Cambridge School. He received his bachelor's and master's degree from St. Stephen's College, Delhi in 1950. While at St. Stephens, he met Rati Batra, his future wife, who was herself a refugee from Pakistan who came to India during the Partition in 1947. Bartholomew lived in India as a stateless citizen until 1967 when he gained Indian citizenship, thereby closing all possibilities of returning to Burma which had become a dictatorship from the early–1960s.

Bartholomew was the Gallery Director of Kunika-Chemould, New Delhi's first contemporary art gallery. Subsequently, from 1966–1973, he worked with the Tibet House, New Delhi as their curator and development officer where he catalogued the Dalai Lama's collection of religious artefacts and travelled with them to the US and Japan. He was also the recipient of the Asian Cultural Council's John D. Rockefeller 3rd Award in 1970. He was appointed Commissioner of the Silver Jubilee of Indian Independence exhibition held in Washington DC in 1973 and travelled to UK in 1982 as a British Council Visitor and as Commissioner of the Festival of India Exhibition held in Britain in 1982, during which he co-curated the exhibition Contemporary Indian Art at the Royal Academy of Arts with Geeta Kapur and Akbar Padamsee. Bartholomew served as the Secretary of the Lalit Kala Akademi from 1977 to 1985. Barely 58, Bartholomew died in 1985. He is survived by his wife Rati Bartholomew and his two sons Pablo and Robin.

• The Story of Siddhartha's Release. (Writers Workshop, India, 1972) • Poems. (Writers Workshop, India, 1973) • The Cycle (sonnets). (Writers Workshop, 1986)

Richard Bartholomew is recorded with the occupation photographer. Established in Library of Congress under n84122956. Recorded as photographer and writer. Established in FAST under 1777028.

Bartholomew pursued a career not only as an art critic but also as a writer, poet, painter, and curator. Solo shows of his work were held in Delhi and Bombay in the 1950s. Between then and the 1970s, he documented life around him through photography. Though he rarely exhibited his photographic work during his lifetime, his pictures intimately portrayed his family and his circle of artist friends and associates and his travels in India and the US.

• A Critic's Eye. (PHOTOINK, New Delhi, Chatterjee & Lal, Mumbai & Sepia International, New York, 2009)