Samuel Fyzee-Rahamin

Fyzee-Rahamin was born on 19 December 1880 in Poona (known as Pune at present), Bombay Presidency in a Bene-Israeli Jewish family as S. Rahamin Samuel Talkar.

[1][2][3] On his return from England in 1908 he was appointed the court painter to Baroda State, a position he held until 1918 and during which time he also served as the art advisor to Maharaja Sayajirao Gaekwad III.

In subsequent years, his works were show cased at the British Empire Exhibition at Wembley in 1924, at the Arthur Tooth & Sons Gallery in London in 1926 under the title "Water-Colors, India, Vedic, Mythological and Contemporary" and at the American Art Association in New York City in 1939 as "Modern Indian Art, on traditional lines".

Gladstone Solomon, principal of the JJ School of Art, to decorate the newly built Imperial Secretariat at New Delhi.

[17][18] Fyzee-Rahamin authored the three act plays Invented Gods and Daughter of Ind and a collection of verse called Man and other poems (1944).

[23][24] An early example of Fyzee-Rahamin's portraiture is the portrait of Rosalind Adler, completed in 1906 and now in the Ben Uri Gallery and Museum in London.

A few years later, they were later evicted from this home and lived in relative poverty in a local hotel with their friends and well wishers helping pay their bills.

There exists today a Fyzee Rahamin Art Gallery but proposals to build an auditorium and cultural centre at the site have faced repeated delays.

[34][35][36][37][38] Fyzee-Rahamin's oeuvre consisted of portraiture, landscapes and murals which were both influenced by and depicted techniques and themes from Indian art.

[43] However, by the 1950s his standing appeared to fall in the West where the Victoria & Albert Museum described him as a 'mediocrity' who 'was never any account as an artist' and that his paintings are 'considered rubbish'.