Prodyot Coomar Tagore
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Prodyot Coomar Tagore | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | 17 September 1873 |
| Died | 28 August 1942 (aged 68) |
| Predecessor | Jatindramohan Tagore |
| Father | Sourindra Mohan Tagore |
Maharaja Bahadur Sir Prodyot Coomar Tagore KCIE (17 September 1873 – 28 August 1942) was a leading land owner, philanthropist, art collector, and photographer in Kolkata, India. He belonged to the Pathuriaghata branch of the Tagore family.
Prodyot Coomar was the eldest son and heir of Sir Jatindramohan Tagore (1831–1908), who had been honoured with the hereditary title of Maharaja Bahadur in 1891. Like Jatindramohun himself, Prodyot Coomar was adopted. His biological father was Sourindra Mohan Tagore (1840–1915), who was Jatindramohun's brother.[1] Prodyot Coomar's natural and adoptive fathers were men of "learning, taste and enlightenment".[2] Sourindra Mohan was a distinguished musician and musical scholar.
Gopi Mohan Tagore, Prodyot Coomar's great-grandfather, had begun the Tagore family's art collection with the assistance of the British artist George Chinnery, who had visited Calcutta in 1803.[3] Prodyot Coomar greatly expanded the collection, and at his death it was the largest collection of European art in India. Works by Van Dyck, Rubens, Constable, Veronese and Murillo as well as British painters who were active in Calcutta in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, such as Jacomb-Hood, Chinnery and Thomas Daniell, covered the walls of the Tagore palaces. In later life, Prodyot Coomar donated extensive collections of Company Paintings to the fledgling collection of the Victoria Memorial Hall in Kolkata. When the Tagore collection was finally dispersed in the 1950s, a number of pictures and drawings were acquired by the institution for its permanent collection.[4]
In addition to being a collector, Prodyot Coomar was an active patron and artist himself. He was a keen photographer,[citation needed] and in 1898 was the first Indian to be elected a fellow of the British Royal Photographic Society.[5] He maintained a studio in his Tagore Castle residence, and exhibited in Kolkata.[citation needed] He was the founder and President of the Academy of Fine Arts, Calcutta,[6] a trustee and Chairman of the Indian Museum and a fellow of the Royal Asiatic Society.
