Tracing the story of sculptor Chintamoni Kar, also an Olympian with a silver medal to his credit – GetBengal story

Currently, France is hosting the XXXIII edition of the Summer Olympics, officially branded as Paris 2024, from July 24 to August 11, 2024. Having previously hosted in 1900 and 1924, Paris becomes the second city ever to host the Summer Olympics three times (after London, which hosted the 1908, 1948, and 2012 Games). Paris Olympics 2024 marks the centenary of Paris 1924. The Olympics are a way for nations to display their skills in sports and athletics. Participants train for years to showcase their skills and become the best in the world. Millions of fans invest their time, attention, and emotion in following their favourite sports stars throughout the Games. This year’s Paris Olympics involve about 10,500 athletes from 200 countries or regions.

On this note, let us recall the curious case of two Olympians who won medals at the Summer Olympics but were not athletes. In 1948, when the Indian Men’s Hockey Team won its fourth consecutive Olympic gold, a 33-year-old sculptor from Bengal bagged silver at the Games in a most unusual category: fine arts. It may sound unbelievable today, but between 1912 and 1948, the Olympics awarded a total of 151 medals to artists in five categories: architecture, literature, music, painting, and sculpture.

Pierre de Coubertin, the founder of the modern Olympic Games, dreamed of marrying aesthetics with athleticism, as he believed that to be a true Olympian, one must be skilled in sport as well as the arts. The modern Olympic Games have a motto that consists of three Latin words: Citius, Altius, and Fortius. It means faster, higher, and stronger. However, in July 2021, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) approved a change in the Olympic motto. The new Olympic motto now reads in Latin “Citius, Altius, Fortius—Committer” (“Faster, Higher, Stronger—Together” in English).

The Dominican priest Henri Didon, in the opening ceremony of a school sports event, first expressed the original motto in 1881. Pierre de Coubertin, who was present that day, adopted them as the Olympic motto in 1894 with the launch of the Olympic Movement. It expresses the aspirations of the Olympic Movement as not just an athletic event but also an educational experience. It encourages athletes to give their best during competition and express excellence in sport. Chintamoni Kar was no athlete, but he was a fine artist, and he won silver at the 1948 Games for his sculpture titled ‘The Stag’ (Skating). The plaster model of the bronze figure was initially crafted in London. The “Stag” is a variant of the split jump in figure skating. So why isn’t Kar immortalised as one of India’s Olympic greats?

Similarly, Norman Prichard is considered India’s first and most decorated individual Olympian to date, and the two silver medals he won at the 1900 Paris Olympics are part of India’s official medal tally. Pritchard was a British-Indian born to English parents in 1877 in Kolkata. He was a gifted sprinter, and he even set a series of national-level records in India. He had an Indian birth certificate and travelled to the Paris Olympics on an Indian passport. Pritchard entered the Olympics as a private individual (India was not yet a member of the Olympics), but he went to Paris with the British Amateur Athletics Association team. The International Olympic Committee lists Pritchard as having represented India at the Games, but the topic is “controversial" because his victories are claimed by both India and Britain.

Pritchard was a man of many talents. After the Paris Olympics, he returned to Kolkata and served as secretary of the Indian Football Association. A few years later, he moved to England and then to America, where he acted in 27 silent films! 

The 1948 Games were historic because it was the last time art was a part of the Olympics. Many who associate the Games with athletics are not aware that in the first four decades, the Olympics held competitions for painting, sculpture, architecture, literature, and music as well. The art competitions were part of the original intention of the Olympic Movement's founders, Pierre de Frédy and Baron de Coubertin. Between 1912 and 1948, 151 medals were awarded to original works in the fine arts inspired by athletic endeavours. Chintamoni Kar, who is revered as one of the most renowned artists of modern India, won a silver medal for his sculpture, Skating the Stag, while representing Great Britain in the 1948 Games.

Born in Kharagpur in 1915, Kar initially joined Giridhari Mahapatra, a traditional Oriya sthapati, or temple carver, as an apprentice and learnt the basics of his art. Later, he joined the Indian Society of Oriental Art, run by Abanindranath Tagore, and learnt painting under Kshitindranath Mazumdar.

In 1938, he moved to Paris to study at the Académie de la Grande and at the atelier of Italian sculptor Victor Giovanelli. His exposure to Western art in Paris transformed his outlook. His subsequent disenchantment with the Bengal School was followed by 10 productive years in England, during which he made his award-winning sculpture, ‘Skating the Stag’, displayed at the 14th Olympic exhibition in London in 1948. He would return to Europe later to work on the conservation of paintings at the Musée du Louvre, Paris, and at the Institute Royal du Patrimoine Artistique, Brussels, in 1960–61.

Back in India, Kar taught at the University of Calcutta and the Delhi Polytechnic. In 1946, he shifted to London and became a member of the Royal Society of British Sculptors. At the 1948 Summer Olympics in London, he was a participant for Great Britain and won the silver medal for his work. He returned to Calcutta in 1956 and served as principal of the Government College of Arts and Crafts, Calcutta, from 1956–73. 

Kar, who was initially trained in the academic/representational style, was equally at home in the world of abstract, and this was reflected in the fluid grace of his sculpture and the many elliptical and tubular forms he created with wood, terracotta, stone, vitrified clay, and metal. He was also a prolific writer. His Bengali commentary on French art and society, ‘Phorasi Shilpi O Samaj,’ was published in 1940, and the book, ‘Classic Indian Sculpture’, was published in 1951. He was honoured with the Padma Bhushan, the third highest Indian civilian award, in 1974. He also received France’s highest civilian honour in 2000. He was married to Amina Ahmed Kar, who was herself an artist, and her works were largely non-figurative and abstract.

The Chintamoni Kar Bird Sanctuary in West Bengal was named after the sculptor after he and other people from the local area fought for it to receive wildlife sanctuary status. Shortly before his death at the age of 90 in October 2005, Kar instituted the Bhaskar Bhavan Administration and Maintenance Trust at his residential campus in Narendrapur, Kolkata. In 2006, the campus became a public museum, which houses the artist’s works as well as those of his wife. The trust holds the annual Chintamoni Kar Memorial Lecture and aids poor students in the local area.