UNKNOWN - PORTRAIT of AMAL HOME

Pastel on Board

Year - Circa 1940

47.5 x 27.5 In.

This portrait depicts Amal Chandra Home (1894–1975) — scholar, historian, editor and a recognised figure within the intellectual and cultural world of Bengal during the first half of the 20th century.

Born into the Hom/Ray family of Sahila, Mymensingh (then East Bengal), he was the son of Gagan Chandra Home, and first cousin of historian Niharranjan Ray. His marriage to Ila Home of the Brahmo Dutta family of Joynagar–Majilpur linked him to another influential intellectual lineage, and it was Rabindranath Tagore who named their daughter Amalina, combining Amal + Ila — a detail preserved through family testimony.

Home entered public life early — he later recalled attending the 1906 Calcutta Congress at age thirteen — and went on to be mentored by Ramananda Chatterjee, founder of The Modern Review and Prabasi. Chatterjee is known to have guided Home’s literary training and secured his first journalistic appointments in Punjab. He later served with The Panjabee and under Kalinath Roy at The Lahore Tribune, working through the turbulence surrounding the Martial Law period of 1919. The Modern Review (Vol. LXXV) later cited how he “valiantly upheld the best traditions of our profession during the dangerous period of martial law in 1919.”

Returning to Calcutta, he became Editor of the Calcutta Municipal Gazette, producing issues of lasting documentary relevance — notably the Tagore Birthday Supplement (May 1941) with a foreword by Hallam Tennyson, and the 23rd Anniversary & Independence Commemoration Number (Dec 1947), later circulated within Santiniketan circles and bearing significant signatures. Two such issues have appeared previously with this platform, both demonstrating his editorial stature and network in the Tagore world.

Home also held a position on the Executive Committee of the Academy of Fine Arts, Calcutta, as listed in the 1934–35 Second Annual Exhibition Catalogue, placing him among figures such as Percy Brown, Atul Bose, Johan van Manen and P.N. Tagore — firmly within the institutional art landscape of the city.

Given the dispersal of much of his private correspondence — including letters of Rabindranath and Rathindranath Tagore, Amiya Chakravarty, Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay, Subhas Chandra Bose and Maitrayee Devi, all referenced in secondary sources — visual material relating to Amal Home is exceptionally uncommon. The present portrait is a rare surviving object connected to a figure who recorded, interpreted and, at times, shaped cultural life in Bengal during a transitional modern period.

Works associated with Home surface infrequently. Only two notable examples — landmark documentary issues of the Calcutta Municipal Gazette from 1941 and 1947 — have previously appeared with this platform. This portrait stands as a valuable extension of that record, offering historians and collectors a visual anchor to a life now preserved largely in print.