It wasn’t perchance that the front of G. Paul’s studio appeared on the expansive cover of Raghu Rai’s INDIA – Reflections in Black & White. That was an ace lensman’s deliberate tribute to the proud legend of Gopeswar Paul who, counting on a rare talent for sculpting faces from clay in three deft strokes, once had set sail for the continent and struck Gold at an international salon of sculptors in England.
Let me rewind a century to the beginning of a lesser-known story of Bengal’s Donatello.
Kumartuli, the potters’ quarter, that by all probable premises predates the genesis of Calcutta, owed its birth to Krishnanagar - a city in Nadia district of Northern Bengal. Seventeenth century Bengal hosted an inrush of potters from there to Gobindopore, a thriving village on the banks of Hooghly, to meet a rising demand of clay-idols in rich households, and exploit the mirage of British kindness for native crafts. Those settlers had to eventually move further up the riverbanks to Sutanuti, the weaver’s settlement, following Gobindopore’s identification as the site of Fort William. Peripatetic potters thus found their final base and fast colonised it with an evocative name. Kumortuli. Or, Coomartolly if spelt archaically.
Back to the story.
Gopeswar had cut his teeth in clay-modelling under his maternal uncle who however did not take kindly to his nephew’s remarkable growth as an artisan. Circa 1910, a persistent Gopeswar left Krishnagar with eyeful of dreams and ten annas in the pocket for a bounteous Calcutta. Having dabbled there for some years in stray jobs to earn enough to buy a shelter, in 1924 he did hit upon the serendipity that had eluded him too long. In the wake of the First World War, British Empire organised an exhibition at Wembley to reclaim its eminence in the Art world. Percy Brown, the then head of Government Art College, having taken an active liking to Paul’s exemplary skill of shaping the likeness of any person in a jiffy, arranged for his travel to Wembley to represent India. On the way, a timid Gopeswar – a coloured travelling on a third-class ticket, bided by making clay busts of co-passengers by the deck. And, ended up being upgraded to First-class by a patronising Captain of the ship who aptly had found in him a diamond in the rough.
Wembley’s exhibition was visited as fervently by the British Royalty as the aspiring artists from other British colonies of the world. And, Gopeswar swept the show with ease by sculpting the bust of Duke of Connaught out of a handful of clay at an unseen pace, a feat that soon led to his being felicitously dubbed the ‘Lightning Sculptor’ on London’s Daily Telegraph. When subsequently invited by the Royalty to travel across continent to exhibit his talent, Gopeswar, a perfectionist to the core, chose to visit Italy instead to whet his skills. By the time he returned home, his had already become a sought-after name amidst the resident elite. With an oeuvre nearly covering all conventional mediums of sculpting, Gopeswar never looked back ever since.
Gopeswar Paul lived ahead of his time. And his sprawling European studio in Calcutta strategically fitted with skylights to facilitate free flow of sunlight attests to that. ‘Kumortuli’s Durga Puja began in 1933. My grandfather, Gopeswar was requested to build the first idol for Kumartuli Sarbojonin that he gladly accepted’, said grandson Byomkesh, who with an able team of clay-artists now fronts G. Paul & Sons. ‘Seizing that opportunity Dadu [Grandpa] built separate idols of the deities’, Byomkesh recounts, ‘at a time when ‘Ekchala Thakur’ (Durga and her children in a single half-circle frame) was only in vogue’. Gopeswar continued making idols for Kumartuli Sarbojonin for eight years unbroken. Impeccable miniatures of those idols are still on display in the studio.
Meanwhile Belur Math was founded and Gopeswar was commissioned to sculpt the marble-image of Sri Ramakrishna. During the process, he by practice would cover the unfinished idol before calling it a day. But deliberately rumpled was how he always found the covering the day after. That recurring mystery left the devout sculptor bewildered for days until ‘Thakur’ is said to have appeared in his dream and begged – ‘You cover me so tight that I suffocate. Please be kind.’ Since then an awestruck Gopeswar never failed to leave a gap in the covering, being consummately in the know how living his ‘Thakur’ was.
The legend of G. Paul, thus, abounds with anecdotes startling enough to baffle the harshest of sceptics. The sparkles I saw in the eyes of his worthy successors and admirers are, nonetheless, what only unwavering faith bestows.
Sculptor Gopeswar Paul died in 1945. But his timeless body of work continues to stand in utter denial of the truth in that inconvenient fact.
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