文／莫奴 Lou Mo
多年前，一位年輕畫家在加德滿都的一座玫瑰園裡修剪了整整兩週的花枝。他在首次舉辦個展時獲得一位德高望重的前輩賞識，受邀前往學習，令他欣喜不已。然而，這位長者始終沒有教他如何在畫布上作畫。十餘天的園藝勞動過後，年輕畫家依然滿腹困惑，最終選擇離去。直到後來，這位年輕畫家蘇約嘉・曼・圖拉達爾（Suyogya Man Tuladhar）才領悟到，萊因・辛格・班德爾（Lain Singh Bangdel）真正想傳授的，是觀察周遭自然所需的耐心。 如今已是尼泊爾動畫產業先驅的圖拉達爾，至今回想這段富有禪意的經歷仍感觸良多，也體認到它對自己如今的創作方法至關重要，無論使用何種媒材。
這則軼事，頗能說明尼泊爾首位現代畫家萊因・辛格・班德爾（1919–2002）其人。他傳奇的一生與藝術生涯，走出了一條獨特的道路，對尼泊爾藝術及其藝術家群體影響深遠。班德爾是尼泊爾第一位、也是最具影響力的現代畫家。他曾在大吉嶺、加爾各答、巴黎與倫敦生活、求學、工作，直至 1961 年方才落腳加德滿都；而這段遷徙離散的經歷，使他恰逢各國相繼獨立、全球藝術現代主義興起的歷史時刻，得以在尼泊爾的過去與國際潮流之間穿引聯繫。他的故事，則起始於 1919 年的大吉嶺。
萊族（Rai）是尼泊爾的原住民族之一，而至十九世紀時，萊族已有許多人東遷至大吉嶺山區（Darjeeling Hills），即今日印度西孟加拉邦的一部分。同世紀上半葉，大吉嶺逐漸納入英國殖民版圖；作為山間驛站，這裡發展成茶園、療養度假地及軍營的樞紐，就業機會日增，也因此匯聚了為數可觀、流寓此地的尼泊爾人。 1919 年，萊因・辛格・班德爾出生於大吉嶺圖克瓦爾（Tukvar）茶園的一個尼泊爾萊族家庭——那是一處「鑿刻於垂直的帝國邊緣」的所在，但終究仍是帝國。 班德爾的父親在茶園擔任文書職員，而年幼的班德爾，便在大吉嶺群山間度過生命最初的歲月。村莊節慶、家人，尤其是祖母講述的尼泊爾傳統故事與她離開尼泊爾的經歷，構成了他的日常，而這一切也都透過孩童的眼睛與嬉戲，在群峰環抱、親密而幽靜的環境中，滋養了他。在專奉女神帕爾瓦蒂（Parvati）的蒂吉節（Teej Festival）上作畫，是班德爾最初的藝術嘗試；那段經驗令他雀躍，也深受鼓舞。 對一個小男孩而言，所謂外面的世界，不過是三小時山路之外，大吉嶺鎮上的中學罷了。彼時的班德爾並不知道，他將從那裡啟程，踏上一段極其漫長的旅途。
1939 年，二十歲的萊因・辛格・班德爾為求藝術上的精進，動身前往加爾各答，就讀政府美術工藝學院（Government College of Art and Crafts）。對他而言，加爾各答是當時居住過最大的都會——這裡有書店、有展覽，還有許多歷史遺跡可供尋訪。學院的訓練嚴謹而全面，兼容西方與印度藝術傳統；班德爾也在此接觸到著名的孟加拉知識分子與藝術家，如羅賓德拉納特・泰戈爾（Rabindranath Tagore）與賈米尼・羅伊（Jamini Roy），以及他們的作品。彼時的加爾各答，進步思潮蓬勃躁動，人們熱切期待著即將來臨的獨立。然而，班德爾在學院求學的這段時日，也正逢第二次世界大戰與 1943 年的孟加拉大饑荒。當人們以為季風亞洲的饑荒早已成為歷史，飢餓竟在二十世紀重返孟加拉——這是戰爭、自然災害，以及殖民當局一項戰略決策共同釀成的結果：將英屬印度的糧食出口供養前線士兵，而非救濟孟加拉。 這場事件的殘酷、動盪反英時期人民所承受的苦難，都對班德爾產生了深刻影響，也形塑了他日後選擇在作品中呈現的那些生命。
畢業之後，班德爾為謀生計四處求職，幾經波折後終於進入當地知名廣告公司 D.J. Keymer。在那裡，他與印度電影導演薩雅吉・雷（Satyajit Ray）共事，並結為好友；雷後來於 1957 年拍出了大獲成功的《大地之歌》（Pather Panchali）。如同雷，班德爾在商業藝術產業中習得並磨練出的敏銳構圖感，正好補足了純藝術訓練所不及的實務面向；這份能力日後也派上用場——定居加德滿都後，他偶爾會承接紀念郵票、機構信箋等平面設計工作。值得一提的是，彼時商業藝術方興未艾，色彩繽紛的宣傳海報正在形塑一種日益全球化的現代視覺文化，而班德爾便身處這股浪潮之中。 在加爾各答期間，班德爾持續與尼泊爾及孟加拉的知識分子往來，對南亞乃至世界各地的藝術、電影與文學，興趣也日漸濃厚。這段時期，也是班德爾作為作家最為豐產的階段：1948 年出版《異鄉》（Outside the Country），1950 年出版《娘家》（Maternal Home），1951 年出版《跛者之友》（The Cripple’s Friend）——在今日許多尼泊爾家庭中，人們首先認識的班德爾是一位作家。這三部小說聚焦於那些流離失所與命運乖舛的生活，講述真實人生中的悲苦與逆境。這份關懷，以及特意為之的寫實風格，在他同代人的作品中亦有所呼應——如雷的電影，以及他大學老師、畫家扎伊努爾・阿貝丁（Zainul Abedin）所繪的饑荒速寫。在加爾各答生活了十餘年後，班德爾漸感不安於室，心中萌生了前往歐洲、見識更廣大世界的念頭。
1952 年 2 月，萊因・辛格・班德爾啟程赴歐。他先抵達倫敦，在孟加拉友人的協助下覓得住處，興致勃勃地遊覽城中的博物館與畫廊，也與瑪努・塔帕（Manu Thapa）重新取得聯繫——瑪努是他在大吉嶺的學生時代便認識的尼泊爾護士，當時正在倫敦工作。1953 年，班德爾與瑪努在巴黎成婚。在歐洲的最初幾年，瑪努是班德爾在經濟與情感上的支柱，也是他藝術生涯中不可或缺的存在。同年九月，班德爾抵達巴黎，進入巴黎國立高等美術學院（École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts）繼續研習繪畫。儘管生活拮据，他仍將時間投入參觀展覽、探索立體主義與印象派等風格、嘗試不透明水彩等新媒材，也遇見了畢卡索（Picasso）與布拉克（Braque）等知名藝術家，並自修各時期的歐洲藝術及存在主義哲學等新思潮。他這一時期的部分作品，被法國攝影師馬克・沃（Marc Vaux）記錄下來——沃當時大量拍攝了巴黎的藝術家工作室，而這批豐富的檔案呈現了巴黎作為世界都會的繁複面貌，現被收藏於龐畢度中心的康丁斯基圖書館（Bibliothèque Kandinsky）。也正是在巴黎，班德爾建立起跨國界的藝術人脈，結識了如印度的克里希納・雷迪（Krishna Reddy）與印尼的阿凡迪（Affandi）等國際藝術家——而後者以手指與布片快速作畫的高超技法，讓班德爾留下了深刻印象。
1957 年，班德爾回到倫敦與其妻再聚，同時繼續在歐洲各地展出作品。加爾各答之後，巴黎與倫敦的生活帶來豐沛的滋養與刺激——這些曾經的帝國與殖民中心，正是全球知識界與藝術圈匯流之處。與此同時，尼泊爾正在醞釀變革：奉行孤立政策的拉納（Rana）政權（1846–1951）已告終結，但 1950 年代的政局仍動盪不安，國家正艱難地邁向民主之路。尼泊爾首任總理畢・普・柯伊拉臘（B.P. Koirala）以及國王馬亨德拉（King Mahendra）先後敦促班德爾返國，協助打造一個現代國家。1961 年初，儘管尚未確定是否會長久定居，班德爾夫婦仍在旅居歐洲十年後訂下了返回亞洲的船票。
在尼泊爾傳統中，藝術向來與宗教、文化實踐相互交融。手稿彩繪，如帕巴畫（paubha，描繪神祇的傳統繪畫）、帕奇特拉（pachitra，取材自神話的敘事圖繪），以及曼荼羅（mandala，幾何構圖的神祇繪畫，常作為冥想輔助），多以佛教或印度教神祇為題材。這些藝術形式與神話和儀式緊密相連，被視為具有神聖與教化的力量。拉納政權時期，西式繪畫——如油彩畫布肖像——由統治階層逐漸引入尼泊爾，但多半只是對歐洲藝術的模仿。 而在尼瓦爾族（Newar）的種姓制度下，職業世代相傳，奇特拉卡爾（Chitrakar）家族以外的畫家，幾乎聞所未聞。
1961 年，萊因・辛格・班德爾初次定居加德滿都。儘管在那之前，這座城市已然偶爾可以見到一些西洋油畫與商業畫廊，但看到一位尼泊爾畫家揮灑著現代繪畫，對當地人而言仍是新奇的景象。值得一提的是，班德爾 1950 至 1970 年代的作品，正標誌著他創作生涯中風格整合與奠定的關鍵階段。從旅居歐洲的離散歲月到返回尼泊爾，這位藝術家在加德滿都發展出成熟的山景畫風格。他 1950 年代的人物畫作（如《女人》〔Woman〕，1953），創作於巴黎美術學院時期，既可見畢卡索、布拉克等歐洲影響，也承襲了賈米尼・羅伊、阿凡迪等亞洲同輩的風格；而他後期更具表現力的作品則超越了風格的藩籬，聚焦於尼泊爾，並以自身的實踐推動藝術生態的現代化，在傳統宗教藝術外提供了另一種可能。1962 年，班德爾在特里－錢德拉學院（Tri-Chandra College）舉辦他在尼泊爾的首個展覽，由國王馬亨德拉親自揭幕，也被廣泛視為現代抽象繪畫引入尼泊爾的里程碑。詩人兼學者阿比・蘇貝迪（Abhi Subedi）稱其為具有歷史意義的事件——儘管當時鮮少觀眾能理解班德爾的作品，但它代表了各種新繪畫形式實驗的開端。 誠然，班德爾將在尼泊爾藝壇開創許多先河——不僅作為畫家，更是一位具批判精神的思想家，以及不懈地建構本土藝術生態的先行者。
作為畫家（這是他最珍視的藝術身分），他自由穿梭於不同的題材與類型之間。他最為人稱道的，是那些雄渾而充滿動感的抽象或半抽象山景畫。這些作品有種格外動人、極具繪畫性的特質。他對高峰的凝視，是對山之優雅與力量的深情致敬（如《加德滿都城》〔Kathmandu City〕，1963；《加德滿都藍》〔Kathmandu Blue〕，1971），同時也流露著生命的許諾，與那份壯闊近在咫尺的感受（《加德滿都之春》〔Spring in Kathmandu〕，1963）。班德爾的喜馬拉雅山景油畫大膽而飽含能量，唯有與群山朝夕相處、悉心觀察、深入探索其間村落與人民的人，才能畫出這樣的作品。加德滿都坐落於中央谷地，四面環繞著喜馬拉雅山脈；而山，是尼泊爾生活的現實與背景。班德爾同樣是一位出色的人物畫家。他的人物畫作包括肖像與多幅自畫像（如《自畫像》〔Self Portrait〕，1958）、取材自詩人拉克希米普拉薩德・德夫科塔（Laxmiprasad Devkota）史詩《穆納與馬丹》（Muna Madan）的哀愁場景（《懷鄉的馬丹》〔Madan in Nostalgia〕，1955），以及靜謐的母子構圖（《母與子》〔Mother and Child 〕，1966）等。這些作品展現了他對色彩與線條的精湛掌握，而不失鮮活與情感的深度。
遷徙流離的經歷，鍛造出班德爾實驗性的風格與創作主題上的普世性。他的創作抗拒狹隘的地域主義，流露出一種普世的、對於眾生及其處境的人文關懷及憐憫。蘇貝迪認為，班德爾的作品體現了他所謂的「再現與抽象繪畫的接觸地帶」，不同的文化、美學、價值觀與教育背景得以在此共存。藝術史學者蒂娜・班德爾（Dina Bangdel）在評論其父的作品時提到，1960 年代可見藝術家從具象轉向擁抱抽象的趨勢。然而，我更認為，與其說班德爾是從具象出走，不如說他離開的是那種將繪畫歸類為特定風格的思維，以及畫家必須循著某種進程、完成某類作品、以傳統的方式再現明確主題或表達特定情感的觀念。這種混融的彈性，在班德爾於 1990 年代民主運動期間創作的晚期作品中展露無遺——肖像與時事繪畫的界線在其中變得模糊難分。作於 1991 年的《人民領袖畢・普・柯伊拉臘肖像》（Portrait of Lokanayaka B.P. Koirala）描繪的是班德爾自大吉嶺青年時期便結識的一位故友（如今已辭世），同時也是對 1960 年代尼泊爾那段曇花一現的民主歲月的追念，其畫面剛健、沉穩、稜角分明。而 1990 年的《爭取民主 I》（Struggle for Democracy I）雖同為抽象，卻散發著更為狂躁與焦灼的氣息。兩幅作品皆極具表現力，也極為私密。
1961 年班德爾定居尼泊爾後，受馬亨德拉國王提名進入新成立的尼泊爾皇家學院（Royal Nepal Academy）接替已故詩人拉克希米普拉薩德・德夫科塔的席位，與歷史學家蘇里亞比克拉姆・格瓦利（Suryabikram Gewali）、劇作家巴爾克里希納・薩瑪（Balkrishna Sama）等傑出人士共事。班德爾在學院服務多年，投入大量心力推進尼泊爾藝術、文化、語言等領域的研究與知識。他在 1970 年代獲選擔任皇家學院的領導職務，為年輕一代的尼泊爾藝術家引入新的媒材、方法與創作取徑，對國內的藝術教育與實踐影響深遠。此後，他兩度受命出任院長，雖然肩負了極為繁重的行政與機構責任，卻也使他得以四處遊歷，持續與世界各地的同儕交流。班德爾另一項引以為傲的成就，是尼泊爾藝術理事會（Nepal Art Council）的創立——他不僅規劃了委員會的宗旨與願景，更親自參與了展覽空間的設計。這是一處專為藝術展覽而打造的場所。
萊因・辛格・班德爾並未選擇在畫布上融合尼泊爾的創作母題與西方技法，但這並不意味著他排斥尼泊爾傳統藝術。事實上，班德爾對傳統藝術推崇備至，並投入大量時間與心力從事田野調查並記錄古代雕塑，用以理解、推廣並保存這份珍貴的尼泊爾文化遺產。身為皇家學院成員，他走遍全國，為尼泊爾雕像進行記錄、攝影與研究，更十分關注那些遭盜掠走私的文物。1965 年，班德爾開始撰寫有關尼泊爾雕塑的著作，接著在 1982 年出版《尼泊爾早期雕塑》（The Early Sculptures of Nepal）、1987 年出版《尼泊爾藝術二千五百年》（2500 Years of Nepalese Art），更在 1989 年出版了最廣為人知的《被盜的尼泊爾文物》（Stolen Images of Nepal）。
至 1960 年代末，班德爾已是國際公認的尼泊爾雕塑權威。1968 至 1969 年間，他受聘成為傅爾布萊特訪問教授（Fulbright visiting professorship），前往俄亥俄州格蘭維爾的丹尼森大學（Denison University），開設「尼泊爾文化」課程。卡爾・強森（Karl Johnson）是選修這門課的少數學生之一，後來不僅在課堂上受教，也隨班德爾習畫，更與班德爾一家結為終生摯友。談起當年班德爾的課如何在最後關頭才終於成班，強森至今仍津津樂道。師生二人很快成為朋友，一同作畫、造訪博物館。班德爾對藝術的熱情極具感染力，他鼓勵強森以藝術家之眼體會生命，而這個建言至今仍備受強森珍視。班德爾一直渴望與人分享藝術知識，也樂在其中，然而這份願望直到退休後方才實現，惠及更多學生。
1989 年自皇家學院退休後，班德爾才終於有時間專心投入教學。吉萬・拉約帕德亞（Jeevan Rajopadhyay）是他的學生之一，這位以色彩繽紛、大膽抽象作品著稱的畫家，後來被譽為尼泊爾第二代抽象畫家的代表人物之一。回憶隨班德爾習藝的十年歲月，拉約帕德亞言談間盡是懷念。班德爾的教學態度親切平易，課堂靈活而富於變化，有時甚至會開車帶著弟子們探尋山中的風景勝地、在戶外寫生，一同感嘆光影與自然之美。班德爾教給這些年輕畫家的，不僅是如何耐心琢磨畫布、以妙筆使作品活起來，更重要的是如何培養藝術家的眼光與態度來從事創作。在尼泊爾藝術從傳統過渡至當代的關鍵時刻，班德爾將現代藝術實踐引入尼泊爾，並慷慨地用自己的時間，為年輕藝術家創造了一方實驗與探索的空間。他的努力獲得肯定，1986 年獲法國政府授予藝術與文學騎士勳章，其後又獲頒英國皇家維多利亞司令騎士勳位。
藝術史學家蔡宇鳴在近期的一篇書章中，探討了曾於倫敦大學學院斯萊德美術學院（Slade School of Fine Art）就讀的亞非留學生，以及他們隨後為「諸現代主義」（modernism/s）去殖民化所付出的努力。蔡宇鳴認為，現代主義的去殖民進程是一種帶有橫斷性（transversal）且共同建構的現象；這不僅關乎如何在去殖民語境中闡述現代主義，亦涉及去殖民現代主義的操作本身。此外，現代主義的多元宇宙性（pluriversality）意指對多重國族語境的橫斷貫穿，而非僅是互不關聯的區域性「多重現代主義」（multiple modernisms）之興起。誠如蔡宇鳴研究中關於班．恩翁武（Ben Enwonwu）與扎伊努爾・阿貝丁的案例，班德爾的去殖民思想與實踐亦銘刻於此全球趨勢之中，並深切關懷國族建構——無論是在制度與文化層面，抑或是美學與基礎設施。在獨立運動與反殖民鬥爭的高峰期，班德爾先後出入於加爾各答、巴黎與倫敦的文化場景，沿途汲取新思潮與論述。例如，當邦德爾還是加爾各答政府美術工藝學院的一年級學生時，阿貝丁便是其主要的美術導師。在諸現代主義的版圖中，其路徑、關係與思想網絡，始終是相互交織的。
在 1961 年遷居加德滿都之前，班德爾是來自大吉嶺、從未在尼泊爾生活過的離散尼泊爾人，但他的血脈與文化歸屬從未受到質疑。班德爾的傳記作者、人類學家兼作家梅瑟施密特（Messerschmidt）敏銳地指出，班德爾所屬的大吉嶺尼泊爾社群，雖自覺與祖國尼泊爾相隔，卻未曾在文化上與其斷離，更同時在這片並非全然異鄉的土地上，維繫著一種次文化。這段獨特的經歷，形塑了他與尼泊爾及其現代藝術場景之間那不尋常的關係——這並非單純回到一處熟悉之地，將舊的掃除、換上更新更好、更後殖民、更現代的藝術。事實上，尼泊爾從未淪為殖民地，但有其自身與拉納寡頭政權的抗爭史，並在君主制與民主之間踽踽前行，至今依舊。尼泊爾亦位於印度與西藏之間的十字路口，與南亞的殖民歷史深深糾葛。
正如恩翁武與阿貝丁，班德爾亦體認到建構國族文化基礎設施的必要，也要為正在解放中的現代國族形塑其藝術實踐。班德爾的畫布或許不涉政治，但其行動卻指向國族建構與世界建造。在這裡，打造一個現代的尼泊爾國，是藝術家意欲從昔日有限且受限的方式中拓展出路的願望，而不必然意味著政治或美學上的激進斷裂或破舊立新。萊因・辛格・班德爾的旅程，也正映照出南亞與尼泊爾的歷史變遷。
帕沙・米特（Partha Mitter）曾精妙地寫道，在評價非西方現代主義者的創作時，跳脫所謂「親和」與「仿效」二元對立的重要性，並主張應細究邊緣現代主義的「駁雜」所呈現的裂隙與幽微之處。班德爾在混融的世界都會加爾各答成長，隨後前往巴黎與倫敦這兩座大都會，親身體驗現代藝術的國際中心。這樣的先後順序意義重大，對於建立他評估並跨越不同現代性之間的從容姿態深具意義，同時也展現了這些現代性如何在極其分歧的都市環境與國家動態中相互關聯並產生蛻變，儘管有時在發展上並不同步。班德爾穿梭於不同的國際與尼泊爾脈絡，在各種角色間轉換自如。正因他對自身作品與工作抱持著開闊而兼容的態度，他對藝術的奉獻，意味著他從不區分自己是作家、畫家、藝術史家還是教師。這種跨領域性與全球視野，使他成為彼時尚未出現之當代藝術實踐的先驅。
班德爾的歷程，抗拒那種從邊陲到都會再折返的簡單遷徙敘事。作為一個直到四十歲才認識祖先之地的尼泊爾人，班德爾對文化及國族認同之間的關係是複雜的，深受他在急遽變動的世界中的離散處境所形塑。這些經歷造就了他作為藝術家與思想家的實踐，體現了一種混融的世界主義——既能自在地操持國際風格與視野，又對在地脈絡有著深刻的敏感度，並致力於在保存尼泊爾過往的同時，為其引入現代藝術實踐。加德滿都並非班德爾遙望歐洲的地方，而是他選擇落腳、並將其培育為一座自成一格之世界都會的土地。班德爾的追索，始終以尼泊爾為核心。印度藝術史家蘇梅什・夏爾馬（Sumesh Sharma）指出，現代主義與國族主義之間的關係，不應與尋求政治與文化上自決與自由之路的需求相混淆。班德爾的追索，是對藝術自由與可能性的追尋，一片無疑屬於現代的遠景。作為藝術家，班德爾致力的並非為愛國主義打造一個國族實體，而是透過藝術，在蛻變的世界中為尼泊爾人——也為他自己——形塑一種現代認同。
2022 年，在班德爾逝世二十年後，尼泊爾藝術委員會依舊活躍，持續作為加德滿都文化地景中的重要地標。它是國際藝術盛事「加德滿都三年展 77」（Kathmandu Triennale 77）的主要展場之一，該展覽旨在「容納一個以對不同文化、傳統與語言的全面欣賞，來取代國界的世界」。班德爾想必會認同這樣的精神與存在。尼泊爾確實已走過漫長道路，如今足以為其藝術成就感到自豪。萊因・辛格・班德爾的影響與遺產，牢牢銘刻於尼泊爾藝術史中——既作為一位成就斐然的藝術家，也作為領導國家美學運動的先驅，一如他 1961 年對馬亨德拉國王的承諾。
關於作者
莫奴是加拿大籍華裔藝術家和策展人，現居法國，並擔任本次香港巴塞爾展覽的策展人。她畢業於法國社會科學高等研究院亞洲研究專業。她的研究主要側重在現當代的亞非交流與第三世界藝術家的創作，也對中心與邊緣、後殖民的歷史中產生的離散、身份認同與感知差異感興趣。她是第十四屆達卡雙年展的客邀策展人（「哈瓦那：南方熔爐」在達卡 IFAN 博物館展出）。她的寫作、譯作和展評曾在《Something we Africans got》、《Journal of Contemporary Chinese Art》、臺北市立美術館《現代美術》等期刊、Palgrave Macmillian 和南京譯林出版社、以及 e-flux、Ocula 等平臺上出版。
Some years ago, a young painter spent two weeks pruning a rose garden in Kathmandu. He had been approached by a venerated mentor at his first painting exhibition and was delighted by the senior artist’s invitation to teach him. However, the older man never taught the young man how to work the canvas. After a dozen days gardening, the young painter remained perplexed and eventually left. It was only afterward that Suyogya Man Tuladhar realized Lain Singh Bangdel had intended to teach him the patience required to observe the nature around him. Mr. Tuladhar, now a pioneer of Nepal’s animation industry, reminisces feelingly on this experience rich in Zen spirit, and its importance on his approach now as an artist, no matter the medium.
This is a telling anecdote about the first Nepali modern painter Lain Singh Bangdel (1919-2002), whose storied life and career mapped a singular journey that had tremendous impact on Nepalese art and its artists. Bangdel was the first and most influential Nepalese modern painter. His migratory and diasporic experience living, learning, and working in Darjeeling, Kolkata, Paris, and London before settling down in Kathmandu in 1961 placed him at the moment of independences and the development of global art modernisms to bridge Nepal’s past with international influences. His story started in 1919 in Darjeeling.
The Rai is one of the indigenous communities of Nepal, and by the 19th century, many of them have migrated east to the Darjeeling hills, currently a part the West Bengal state in India. During the first half of the same century, Darjeeling gradually came under British colonial control, and as a hill station was made a hub for tea plantations, health and leisure resorts as well as military camps which offered increasing employment opportunities. Thus, Darjeeling gathered a considerable Nepalese diaspora who worked there. Lain Singh Bangdel was born to a Nepalese Rai family on a Tukvar tea estate in Darjeeling in 1919, at a place “carved into the vertical edges of empire”, but empire nevertheless. Bangdel’s father was a tea plantation clerk. Lain Singh Bangdel spent the first years of his life living in the mountains of Darjeeling. His daily life there was marked by village festivals, his family, and particularly his grandmother’s tales of their Nepalese heritage and her passage from Nepal, all absorbed through a child’s eye and play in a intimate and secluded environment surrounded by high peaks. Painting at the Teej festival dedicated to the goddess Parvati was one of Bangdel’s first artistic trials, and this exhilarating experience encouraged him. For a small boy, the world elsewhere was but his high school three hours up the mountain in the town of Darjeeling. Little does Bangdel know that he would embark from there on a very long sojourn.
In 1939, twenty year old Lain Singh Bangdel has decided to pursue higher education in art and moved to Kolkata to attend the Government College of Art and Crafts. At that point, Kolkata is the biggest metropolis Bangdel has lived in, and offered bookstores, art exhibitions and historic places to visit. The training he received at the college was rigorous and comprehensive, encompassing both Western and Indian traditions. Bangdel would also come across prominent Bengali intellectuals and artists such as Rabindranath Tagore and Jamini Roy and their works. Kolkata at the time was fizzing with progressive ideas and on the lookout for a rapidly approaching independent future. His time at the college would also coincide with the Second World War and the Bengal famine of 1943. The return of starvation to Bengal in the twentieth century, just when people thought famines in monsoon Asia is a thing of the past, resulted from a combination of war, natural disasters, and the strategic colonial decision to export crops from British India to feed soldiers at the front rather than sending relief to Bengal. The cruelty of this event and the hardships it imposed on the people during this turbulent anti-British period would have a profound impact on Bangdel and the lives he would choose to put forward in his works.
Upon graduation and after some tribulations on finding a suitable job to make a living, Bangdel started working at a renowned local advertising agency D.J. Keymer. There, he would work with and become friends with the Indian filmmaker Satyajit Ray, who would go on to make the hugely successful Pather Panchali in 1957. Like Ray, Bangdel’s keen sense of composition learned and honed in the commercial art industry is a practical complement to his fine arts training and later he would dabble in graphic work in Kathmandu when the occasion calls, such as for commemorative stamps and institutional letterheads. It is interesting to note that the rise at the time of commercial art helped construct and articulate an increasingly globalized visual culture of modernity with colourful publicity posters, and Bangdel participated firsthand in this industry. While in Kolkata, Bangdel continued to associate with the Nepalese and Bengali intellectuals and developed a growing interest for art, cinema, and literature from South Asia and beyond. This is also Bangdel’s most prolific period as a writer. He published Outside the Country in 1948, Maternal Home in 1950, and The Cripple’s Friend in 1951. In many Nepalese households today, Bangdel would be known by most first and foremost as an author. In his three novels, Bangdel focused on the lives of the displaced and the unfortunate, telling stories of real lives of sorrow and adversity. This ethos and the intentional realism are echoed in the works of his contemporaries, such as in Ray’s films and his college teacher the painter Zainul Abedin’s famine sketches. After more than a decade in Kolkata, Bangdel became restless and started thinking about going to Europe to see and learn more about the world.
In February 1952, Lain Singh Bangdel set sail for Europe. First, he arrived in London, and through the help of his Bengali network, found lodging, toured museums and galleries avidly in town, and connected again with Manu Thapa, a Nepalese nurse working in London whom he knew from his student days in Darjeeling. Lain and Manu would marry in Paris in 1953. During these early years, Manu supported Lain financially and emotionally and remained instrumental to Bangdel’s career as an artist. Bangdel arrived in Paris in September and enrolled at the École national supérieure des Beaux-Arts where he would further study the art of painting. Even though he lived frugally, Bangdel would spend his time visiting exhibitions, discovering and experimenting with styles such as Cubism and Impressionism, with new materials such as gouache, meeting famous artists such as Picasso and Braque, and educated himself about European art spanning all periods and new ideas such as existentialist philosophy. Some of his works from this period are captured by the French photographer Marc Vaux who documented extensively Parisian artist studios at the time, and this rich archive demonstrating Paris’ multilayered and cosmopolitan fabric is now housed at Centre Pompidou’s Bibliothèque Kandinsky. It is also in Paris that he cultivated a transnational network of relationships across art worlds with international artists such as the Indian Krishna Reddy and the Indonesian Affandi, the latter’s virtuoso and rapid painting techniques using fingers and rags left a lasting impression on Bangdel.
In 1957, the Bangdels are reunited in London. Lain Singh Bangdel continued to exhibit in Europe. Living in Paris and London after Kolkata was an immensely enriching and thrilling experience, for it is truly across this global constellation of cosmopolitan cities, formerly imperial or colonial, that the international intellectual and artistic cercles were converging and exchanging. Meanwhile in Nepal, change is in the air, the isolationist Rana rule (1846-1951) has came to an end but the 1950s were still politically turbulent, with the country trodding an arduous path to democracy. Both Nepal’s first Prime Minister B.P. Koirala and later King Mahendra successively urged Bangdel to return to Nepal and help build a modern nation. In early 1961, even though they did not knowing whether they were going to stay or not, still the Bangdels booked passage back to Asia after a decade in Europe.
Traditionally in Nepal, art is profoundly intertwined with religious and cultural practices. Manuscript illuminations, paubhas (traditional Nepalese painting depicting divinities), pachitra (narrative scenes from mythology), and mandalas (a geometric painting featuring divinities and often use as a meditation aid) often depict Buddhist or Hindu divinities. They are connected to myths and rituals, and are imbued with magical and didactic powers. During the Rana rule, western style painting such as oil on canvas portraits are gradually introduced to Nepal by the ruling class, but are mostly imitations of European art. In addition, according to the Newar caste system, professions are inherited. Painters outside of the Chitrakar clan of the Newar system were virtually nonexistent.
When Lain Singh Bangdel first came to settle in Kathmandu in 1961, even though some western oil paintings and a commercial art gallery had been seen in town previously, it is still a strange sight for people to see a Nepali painter conjuring up modern paintings. Incidentally, Bangdel’s works from the 1950s to the 1970s also shows a key integration and consolidation phase in his oeuvre. Going forth from his diasporic years in Europe culminating in his return to Nepal, the artist developed his mature style mountainscapes in Kathmandu. While his 1950s figure paintings (Woman, 1953), created during his time at the École des Beaux-Arts de Paris, show both European influences, such as Picasso and Braque, and Asian peers like Jamini Roy and Affandi, his expressive later works move beyond stylistic constraints. They focus on Nepal and he modernized its art ecology through his own example, offering an alternative to the traditional religious art. Bangdel’s 1962 exhibition at the Tri-Chandra College, his first in Nepal, was inaugurated by King Mahendra and widely recognized as the introduction of modern abstract paintings to Nepal. Poet and scholar Abhi Subedi describes it as an event of historical importance, though few viewers at the time understood Bangdel’s works, but it marks the beginning of a series of new formal experimentations in painting. Indeed, Bangdel will be the first of many things in the Nepalese art world, not only as a painter but also as a critical thinker and a tireless builder of its art ecosystem.
As a painter, the artistic identity Bangdel cherished most, he explored different genres and topics concurrently with great liberty. He is best known for his majestic and dynamic abstract or semi-abstract mountainscapes. There is something strikingly evocative and painterly about them. His observation of the high peaks is a loving tribute to their grace and power (Kathmandu City, 1963; Kathmandu Blue, 1971), but also exude life’s promise and proximity to their grandeur (Spring in Kathmandu, 1963). Bangdel’s oil-on-canvas Himalayan paintings are bold and energetic, and can only come from someone who has lived with, observed, and explored the mountains, its villages and its peoples intimately at all times of the day and of the year. Kathmandu is situated in a central valley and surrounded by Himalayan mountains. The mountains are the reality and background of Nepalese life. Bangdel is also an accomplished figure painter. His figurative works include portraits and many self-portraits (Self Portrait, 1958), melancholic scenes from the Muna Madan epic inspired by poet Laxmiprasad Devkota’s work (Madan in Nostalgia, 1955), and serene mother-and-child compositions (Mother and Child, 1966), among others. These works show strong mastery of colours and lines without compromising vividness and emotional depth.
His migratory experiences forged an experimental style with thematic universality. Bangdel’s approach defies simple regionalism and radiate a universally humanist concern and care for living beings and their conditions. Subedi also observes that Bangdel’s work is indicative of what he calls the contact zones of representational and abstract modes of paintings, where different cultures, aesthetics, values, and educational impacts come to co-exist. Art historian Dina Bangdel comments on her father oeuvres noting that there is a move away from figurative works to embrace abstraction in the 1960s. However, I would further argue that rather than saying that the artist was moving away from figuration, Bangdel moved away from categorizing paintings into styles and the concept that a painter should follow a progressive path to achieve certain types of works in order to represent well-defined subject matters or express a set of feelings in a conventional way. This hybrid flexibility is demonstrated in Bangdel’s later works created during the democracy movement of the 1990s, where portraits and paintings about contemporary events seem to be confounded. Portrait of Lokanayaka B.P. Koirala dated 1991 depicted a now deceased friend that Bangdel has known since his youth in Darjeeling, and a reminder of a short-lived democratic moment in Nepalese history in the 1960s, is vigorous, stable, and angular. Struggle for Democracy I dated 1990, though also abstract, emanate something much more febrile and anxious. Both are extremely expressive and personal.
As Bangdel settled in Nepal in 1961, he was nominated to the newly established Royal Nepal Academy by King Mahendra, in the company of illustrious colleagues such as the historian Suryabikram Gewali and dramatist Balkrishna Sama, filling the seat of the late Laxmiprasad Devkota. Bangdel would serve for many years at the Academy and dedicated considerable to research and advancing knowledge on Nepalese art, culture, language and more. In 1970s, Bangdel was elected to a leadership position at the Royal Nepal Academy, and this would usher in new media, methods, and approaches for younger Nepalese artists, having a great impact on art education and practice in the country. Later, he was appointed chancellor twice, which kept him extremely occupied with administrative and institutional duties, but also allowed Bangdel to travel extensively and continue to exchange with his peers from all over the world. Another one of Bangdel’s proudest achievements is the establishment of the Nepal Art Council, not only what it should accomplish and envision, but also in the very design of gallery spaces. It was specifically designed for art exhibitions.
Lain Singh Bangdel did not choose to blend Nepalese motifs with Western technique to achieve a synthesis on his canvases but this does not mean that he rejects traditional Nepalese art. In fact, Bangdel admired traditional Nepalese art and dedicated tremendous time and effort doing fieldwork and documenting ancient sculptures in order to understand, promote, and preserve this magnificent Nepalese cultural heritage. As a member of the Royal Nepal Academy, he has travelled all over the country to document, photograph, and research Nepalese statuary, especially these who were victims of looting and smuggling. In 1965, Bangdel started writing about Nepalese statuary and would continue to publish The Early Sculptures of Nepal in 1982, 2500 Years of Nepalese Art in 1987, and the most well-known Stolen Images of Nepal in 1989.
By the late 1960s, Bangdel is recognized internationally as an authoritative expert on Nepali statuary. From 1968 to 1969, he accepted a Fulbright visiting professorship to teach at Denison University in Granville, Ohio where he taught a class called “Nepalese Culture”. Karl Johnson, one of the few students who attended Bangdel’s class at Denison, became not only a classroom but also a painting student, and a lifelong friend to the Bangdel family. Johnson remembers vividly and fondly the last minute apparition of Bangdel’s class at the university. The teacher and the student became quick friends, sharing time during painting lessons and museum visits. Lain Singh Bangdel’s passion for art is contagious and his encouragement for Johnson to appreciate life through the eyes of an artist is cherished to this day. Bangdel had always wanted and enjoyed to share his knowledge of art with others, but this wish would come to fruition and touch more students only after his retirement.
It is only after his retirement from the Royal Nepal Academy in 1989 that Bangdel finally had time to dedicate to teaching. One of his students is Jeevan Rajopadhyay, a renowned painter of colourful and bold abstract works who became known as one the second generation of Nepalese abstract painters. Rajopadhyay recalls fondly his decade of learning with Lain Singh Bangdel. Bangdel had a friendly and approachable attitude to teaching, and his classes were flexible and dynamic, and sometimes en plein air, as he drove and discovered scenic spots in the mountains with his disciples and together they marvelled at the beauty of light and nature. Bangdel did not only teach the apprentices painters how to really spend time to work on a canvas and add an enlightening touch to bring it to life, but most crucially how to foster an artist’s way and eye to approach practicing art. Bangdel introduced modern art practice to Nepal at a key time between its traditional and contemporary phases and with the generosity his own time, he created a space where young artists could experiment and explore. His efforts are recognized as he was made a Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French government in 1986, followed by a knighthood as Knight Commander of the Royal Victorian Order.
In a recent book chapter on international students from Asia and Africa who have spent time at London’s Slade School of Fine Art and their subsequent efforts to decolonize modernism/s, art historian Ming Tiampo argues that decolonization of modernism/s is a transversal and co-constituted phenomenon, which is as much about articulating modernism/s in the context of decolonization as the operation of decolonizing modernism/s itself, and the very pluriversality of modernism/s imply the traversing of multiple national contexts rather than the emergence of disparate regional “multiple modernisms.” Much like the examples of Ben Enwonwu and Zainul Abedin in Tiampo’s study, Lain Singh Bangdel’s decolonizing thoughts and efforts are inscribed in this global trend and also deeply concerned with nation-building, both institutionally and culturally, as well as aesthetic and infrastructural. Bangdel was steeped successively in the cultural scenes of Kolkata, Paris, and London at the height of independence movements and anti-colonial struggles, absorbing new ideas and discourses along the way. For instance, Abedin was Bangdel’s main art teacher as a first year student at the Government College of Art and Crafts in Kolkata. The networks of paths, relationships and ideas in different modernisms are always interlaced.
In 1961, before moving to Kathmandu, Bangdel was a diasporic Nepalese from Darjeeling who has never lived in Nepal but his heritage and cultural belonging were not in question. Messerschmidt observes keenly that Bangdel was part of the Nepalese community in Darjeeling who felt separated from Nepal the motherland but not from its culture, all the while maintaining a subculture in a land that was only partly foreign to them. This unique experience contributed to his forging an unusual relationship with Nepal and its modern art scene that is not a simple return to a familiar place in order to mold it into something else — out with the old and in with newer, better, postcolonial and more modern art. In fact, Nepal was never colonized but has its own struggles with the Rana oligarchy and is walking a difficult path between monarchy and democracy until this very day. It is also situated at the crossroad between India and Tibet, and deeply entangled in the colonial history of South Asia. Like Enwonwu and Abedin, Bangdel identifies with the need to construct national cultural infrastructure and formulate modern artistic practices identified with an emancipating modern nation. If Bangdel’s canvases are not political, his actions are nevertheless directed towards nation-building and world-making. Here, making a modern Nepal nation is an aspiration for the artist to expand from limited and limiting ways of yore, without necessarily implying a radical break or iconoclast change in politics or aesthetics. Lain Singh Bangdel’s journey is reflective of historical changes in South Asia and in Nepal.
Partha Mitter has written eloquently on the importance of looking outside the affinity versus emulation dichotomy in assessing the opus of non-Western modernists, and advocated for examining the finer cracks and subtleties that the “messiness” of periphery modernisms offered. Lain Singh Bangdel came of age in the hybrid cosmopolis of Kolkata before traveling to experience the international centre of modern art in the metropolises of Paris and London. This sequence is significant in establishing his ease to assess and navigate between different kinds of modernity, and how they relate to and morph in vastly divergent urban settings and national dynamics, sometimes asynchronous in development. Bangdel flowed through different international and Nepali contexts, and transitioned effortlessly across his various roles. His devotion to art predicted that he did not discriminate whether he worked as a writer, a painter, an art historian or a teacher as his understanding of his oeuvre and contribution is expansive and inclusive. This interdisciplinarity and global perspective makes him a forerunner of contemporary practices that are yet to come.
Bangdel’s journey resists a simple migration narrative from periphery to metropolis and back. As a Nepalese who had not known his ancestral land before the age of forty, Bangdel had a complex relationship with cultural and national identities, shaped by his diasporic position in a rapidly shifting world. These experiences shaped his practice both as artist and thinker who embodied a hybrid cosmopolitanism — at ease with an international style and outlook, yet deeply sensitive to local contexts and committed to introducing modern art practices in Nepal while preserving its past. Kathmandu was not a place from which Bangdel longed for Europe, but the land where he chose to settle and cultivate into a cosmopolis in its own right. Nepal is always at the heart of Bangdel’s inquiry. Indian art historian Sumesh Sharma notes, the relationship between modernism and nationalism cannot be confused with the need to find a path of self-determination and freedom both politically and culturally. Bangdel’s quest is one for artistic liberty and possibilities, a decidedly modern vista. As an artist, Bangdel’s endeavours were less about making the nation as an entity for patriotism, but the making, for himself included, of a modern identity for the Nepalese through art in a metamorphosing world.
In 2022, twenty years after Bangdel’s passing, the Nepal Art Council continues to serve actively as an important landmark on Kathmandu’s cultural landscape. It is one of the main venues of Kathmandu Triennale 77, an international art event, meant to “contain a world where borders are replaced by a comprehensive appreciation of comparative cultures, traditions, and languages”. Bangdel would have approved of its spirit and presence. Nepal have certainly came a long way and can proudly boast its achievements in art today. The influence and legacy of Lain Singh Bangdel is firmly inscribed in Nepalese art history, both as an accomplished artist and as the pioneer who led the country’s aesthetic movement, as he promised King Mahendra in 1961.
About the Author
Lou Mo (b. 1990, France) is a Chinese Canadian artist and curator. She lives and works in France and also serves as the curator for Lain Singh Bangdel’s solo presentation at Art Basel Hong Kong 2026. She graduated from Ecole des hautes études en sciences sociales in Paris with a degree in Asian Studies. Her research is focused on modern and contemporary Afro-Asian connections and Third World artists’ creative practices. She is also interested in issues of diaspora, identity, and perception in relation to post-colonial history and the centre-periphery model. She was invited curator of the 14th Dakar Biennial in Senegal where she presented ‘Havana, Forging the Souths’ exhibition at the Musée Théodore Monod – IFAN. Her articles, translations, and exhibition reviews have appeared in ‘Something we Africans got’, the Journal of Contemporary Chinese Art, Modern Art (TFAM), with Palgrave Macmillan, Nanjing’s Yilin Press, e-flux and Ocula.