Antonio Piedade da Cruz (22 August 1895 – 1982) was a 20th-century Indian painter and sculptor.

Early life and background

He was born on 22 August 1895 in the village of Velim in then

Portuguese India The State of India ( pt, Estado da Índia), also referred as the Portuguese State of India (''Estado Português da Índia'', EPI) or simply Portuguese India (), was a state of the Portuguese Empire founded six years after the discovery of a se ...

and joined

Bombay Mumbai (, ; also known as Bombay — the official name until 1995) is the capital city of the Indian state of Maharashtra and the ''de facto'' financial centre of India. According to the United Nations, as of 2018, Mumbai is the second- ...

Sir Jamsetjee Jeejebhoy School of Art The Sir Jamsetjee Jeejeebhoy School of Art (Sir J. J. School of Art) is the oldest art institution in Mumbai, India, and is affiliated with the University of Mumbai. The school grants bachelor's degrees in fine art and sculpture, and Master's de ...

in 1916. Cruzo studied under Gladstone Salomon, M. V. Dhurandhar and Agoskar, and graduated in 1920. He went on to study in Europe, applied to the

Berlin University of the Arts The Universität der Künste Berlin (UdK; also known in English as the Berlin University of the Arts), situated in Berlin, Germany, is the largest art school in Europe. It is a public art and design school, and one of the four research universiti ...

and won a scholarship and the status of "Master Student" (Meisterschüler). He studied there from 1922 under

Arthur Kampf Arthur Kampf (28 September 1864 in Aachen – 8 February 1950 in Castrop-Rauxel) was a List of German painters, German painter. He was associated with the Düsseldorf school of painting. Life Kampf studied under Peter Janssen, among others, ...

, Ferdinand Spiegel and Paul Plontke.

Career

Cruzo caught the attention of the Portuguese Ambassador in Berlin when he, after a German newspaper described him as "Portuguese from India", asked the paper to rectify, insisting that he was "pure Indian". With the support of the Ambassador, Cruzo held his first solo exhibition in

Lisbon Lisbon (; pt, Lisboa ) is the capital and largest city of Portugal, with an estimated population of 544,851 within its administrative limits in an area of 100.05 km2. Grande Lisboa, Lisbon's urban area extends beyond the city's administr ...

in October 1925. He returned to India following a request by the

Maharaja of Travancore The Maharaja of Travancore was the principal title of the ruler of the Kingdom of Travancore in the southern part of Kerala, India. The Maharaja of Travancore was the topmost ruler of Travancore until 1949, when Travancore was annexed into Indi ...

. Cruzo settled in Bombay and became well known as a sculptor and

portrait painter Portrait Painting is a genre in painting, where the intent is to represent a specific human subject. The term 'portrait painting' can also describe the actual painted portrait. Portraitists may create their work by commission, for public and pr ...

both among Indian royalty and the expatriate elite. Among the people who sat for his portraits were

Philip Chetwode Field Marshal Philip Walhouse Chetwode, 1st Baron Chetwode, 7th Baronet of Oakley, (21 September 1869 – 6 July 1950), was a senior British Army officer. He saw action during the Second Boer War, during which he was present at the Siege of Ladys ...

, Louis Mountbatton,

Lallubhai Samaldas Sir Lallubhai Samaldas Mehta (14 October 1863 – 14 October 1936) was a wealthy aristocrat and advisor in the court of the Maharaja of Bhavnagar in Gujarat. He was involved in the establishment of numerous industries in western India, particularly ...

and

Purshottamdas Thakurdas Sir Purshottamdas Thakurdas (1879–1961), , was a Gujarati cotton trader, mill owner, businessman and industrialist from Mumbai, India. He was one of the signatory of '' Bombay Plan'', which was set of proposals for the post-independence economy ...

. His "Cruzo Studio" in

Brabourne Stadium The Brabourne Stadium is a cricket ground in Mumbai in Western India, built in the British Bombay era. It was the home ground of the Mumbai men's and women's cricket teams. It can accommodate 50,000 people for sports matches. The ground is owne ...

became an important meeting place, including for members of the

Goa liberation movement The Goa liberation movement was a movement which fought to end Portuguese colonial rule in Goa, Portuguese India. The movement built on the small scale revolts and uprisings of the 19th century, and grew powerful during the period 1940–196 ...

. Despite Cruzo's entries with the rich and famous, his main work focused on poverty and

social injustice Social justice is justice in terms of the distribution of wealth, Equal opportunity, opportunities, and Social privilege, privileges within a society. In Western Civilization, Western and Culture of Asia, Asian cultures, the concept of social ...

as well as hard-working farmers and fishermen. He also painted colourful

allegories As a literary device or artistic form, an allegory is a narrative or visual representation in which a character, place, or event can be interpreted to represent a hidden meaning with moral or political significance. Authors have used allegory th ...

and nudes. A meeting with

Mahatma Gandhi Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (; ; 2 October 1869 – 30 January 1948), popularly known as Mahatma Gandhi, was an Indian lawyer, anti-colonial nationalist Quote: "... marks Gandhi as a hybrid cosmopolitan figure who transformed ... anti- ...

gave Cruzo fresh inspiration and from then onwards, political themes dominated his work, first the struggle for independence,

partition Partition may refer to: Computing Hardware * Disk partitioning, the division of a hard disk drive * Memory partition, a subdivision of a computer's memory, usually for use by a single job Software * Partition (database), the division of a ...

and later the

Bangladesh Liberation War The Bangladesh Liberation War ( bn, মুক্তিযুদ্ধ, , also known as the Bangladesh War of Independence, or simply the Liberation War in Bangladesh) was a revolution and War, armed conflict sparked by the rise of the Benga ...

and the

Vietnam War The Vietnam War (also known by #Names, other names) was a conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. It was the second of the Indochina Wars and was officially fought between North Vie ...

. Cruzo died in 1982 but remains one of Goa's most notable artists. After years of oblivion, Cruzo's work is being rediscovered. In 2016,

Ranjit Hoskote Ranjit Hoskote (born 1969) is an Indian poet, art critic, cultural theorist and independent curator. He has been honoured by the Sahitya Akademi, India's National Academy of Letters, with the Sahitya Akademi Golden Jubilee Award and the Sahitya ...

curated an exhibition of 16 oil paintings by Cruzo at the

Sunaparanta, Goa Centre for the Arts Sunaparanta, Goa Centre for the Arts is a cultural centre in Altinho, Panjim, Goa. Its official website describes it as a "non-profit, process-based initiative to encourage creation, learning, understanding, appreciation and enjoyment of the vis ...

Ranjit Hoskote, The Quest for Cruzo, http://scroll.in/article/810483/the-quest-for-cruzo-remembering-a-bombay-artist-who-painted-the-rich-but-identified-with-the-poor and a website was set up to gather existing media and information about the artist.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Cruz, Antonio Piedade da 1895 births 1982 deaths People from South Goa district Indian male painters Indian male sculptors Sir Jamsetjee Jeejebhoy School of Art alumni Indian portrait painters 20th-century Indian painters 20th-century Indian sculptors Painters from Goa 20th-century Indian male artists