On the Life and Works of John Irwin
argaret Hall is a well known scholar of Indian Art. She closely collaborated with John Irwin in preparing his work on Indian Textiles and co-authored a book with him on Indian Embroideries.
John Conran Irwin was born on 5th August 1917 in Madras. His father, John Williamson Irwin, a coffee planter and owner of the Jumboor Estate in Coorg, married Ruth Leefe Robinson, whose family owned a nearby estate in Coorg. On his father’s retirement, John Irwin came to England as a very young child, and spent his early childhood in Devonshire. He did not return to India until 1943.
John always said he “did not shine at school”, though he formed a love of reading, and of history, which is evident throughout his later work. His parents had meanwhile moved to London, and on leaving school, John joined them and began to work as a journalist and theatre critic.
John was 22 years old when the Second World War broke out. From 1939 to 1945 he was engaged in Military Service. In 1942, he suffered a motor cycle accident while in active service, which left him permanently slightly lame. He was invalidated from active service, and sent as an A.D.C. to the staff of three successive Governors of Bengal, eventually serving as non-political Private Secretary. In 1944, he served as Secretary to the Bengal Famine Relief Fund.
While in Calcutta, John took a keen interest in the arts of Bengal, which remained with him all his life. In collaboration with his friend Bishnu Dey, the progressive poet, he jointly wrote the first biography of the painter Jamini Roy, with illustrations of the artist’s work published in Calcutta in 1944 by the Indian Society of Oriental Art.
On his return to England at the end of the war, John Irwin joined the Victoria and Albert Museum, London as Assistant Keeper of the Indian Section. Almost immediately, he was seconded by the Museum to serve as Executive Secretary for the Royal Academy Exhibition of Indian Art, (1947-48), to mark the independence of India and Pakistan. The commemorative catalogue of this large exhibition was published in 1950, the leading authors being Professor K. de B. Codrington, then Keeper of the Indian section at the Victoria and Albert Museum (sculpture and antiquities), and Basil Gray, then Keeper of oriental antiquities at the British Museum (paintings). John Irwin was the author of the shorter sections on bronze images, and textiles.
On joining the Victoria and Albert Museum, John had been allocated the job of the care of the Department’s large collection of Indian textiles, and it was as a writer on the history of Indian textiles that he first achieved distinction. John based his work upon meticulous study and analysis of the trade records of the European East Indian Companies, who were trading into India in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and for whom Indian textiles were a major commodity.
At this early stage of his career, John collaborated with his friend Gira Sarabhai, daughter of the philanthropist Ambalal Sarabhai, owner of the Calico Textile Mill at Ahmedabad. Gira Sarabhai was a keen collector of fine old Indian textiles, and envisaged the formation of a Museum of Indian Textiles. John helped his friend to establish the Calico Museum of Textiles at Ahmedabad, a town with a long history of fine woven, printed and embroidered textiles. Throughout his life, John remained the source behind the help and advice to the Museum.
In 1956-57, John Irwin was appointed as an Expert on Museum Planning by Unesco, and was sent in 1956 on a mission to Indonesia. He was then sent to Malaysia to plan the foundation of the Malaysian National Museum at Kuala Lumpur.
In 1959, John was promoted Keeper of the Indian Section at the Victoria and Albert Museum, and was able to devote more of his time and energies to his main personal interests – in the study of Indian sculpture, bronze images, and antiquities. As an already recognised leader in Textile history, he was able to enrich his own work by collaborating with curators of other parallel collections. The Victoria and Albert Museum which had a particularly fine collection of Indo-European chintz of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, collaborated for several years with Katharine Brett, of the Royal Ontario Museum, Canada which had the similar collection. This collaboration bore valuable fruit in the joint cataloguing of the two collections under their joint authorship, entitled Origins of Chintz (London and Toronto, 1970).
John maintained his contacts with India, and encouraged exchanges with leading Indian art historians. In the particular context of Indian sculpture and bronze images, he invited Indian experts to visit London to check and discuss the collections of Victoria and Albert Museum. He negotiated the award of Travel Grants to enable them to do so.
In 1971, John was appointed to present the prestigious Lowell Lectures at Boston, Massachusetts. He decided to devote the series of six lectures to a study of the earliest stone sculptures in India (earlier carvings having been in wood), the great Buddhist pillars erected by Emperor Asoka in the 3rd century B.C., several of which are inscribed by him. John gave his lecture series the title, “Foundations of Indian Art”. Previous scholarship had attributed the innovation of sculpture in stone to the influence of foreign craftsmen from Greece, and from Achaemenid, Persia. John demonstrated in the course of his extensive examination and discussion that the pillars had roots in earlier Indian traditions; he further demonstrated that a few of the pillars had possibly been pre-Asokan. He showed that there had certainly been in India an earlier cult of the Sacred Pillar, though the earliest pillars, being of wood, had not survived. On his return, John repeated his series of lectures at the Victoria and Albert Museum.
John’s ideas provoked much interested discussion and also some fierce opposition from hard-line traditionalist academics. John was under pressure from both sides to publish his research. The pressure and challenge for ‘speedy publication’ coincided with an extremely busy schedule of duties relating to his museum work, leading John to publish a series of preliminary articles in The Burlington Magazine (1973 to 1978).
Unfortunately, a small and vociferous group of academic opponents continued to raise arguments as soon as any work appeared. The number of surviving Asokan pillars is too few to enable hard-and-fast opinion on dating. Only two, at Vaisali (un-inscribed), and at Lauriya-Nandangarh (inscribed) both in Bihar, survive intact in their original locations. Others survive only as standing shafts, or portions of shafts, or as fallen capitals and fragments discovered in excavation. There are records and descriptions of others, scattered widely in India, by early visitors, the pillars themselves not having survived. There are also academic disagreements about the precise dating of Asoka’s reign.
If in some of his writings of the mid to late 1970s, John appears to defend his ideas aggressively, and to criticise hardline ‘academic opponents’ with some scorn – this understandable aggression fades from his work later in his career. He continued to develop his research, and to modify his ideas as new evidence came to light. From his early days, John had been a deep respector of history, and based his work upon meticulous researching of the records. His findings – if original in outlook – were sincerely, and carefully formulated.
In 1975, John was awarded a Travelling Fellowship by The British Academy, to visit the Asokan Pillar sites in India, and to present his lectures in India under the auspices of The British Academy, the National Museum of India, and the Archaeological Survey of India. This tour gave John the opportunity to study the surviving monuments and their surroundings personally, and to meet and discuss with leading Indian archaeologists. John also developed a growing interest in the study of local customs and traditions at each of the sites.
On his return from India, John continued to develop his work on his intended book, enriching his approach with the information and ideas he had gained in India. Several proposals were made by publishing institutions, mainly in U.S.A. However, none of the proposals was completed.
John continued to present lectures, and attend conferences. He published his work in the form of articles in learned journals, and in conference proceedings. In the apparent deadlock of further progress in his Asokan Pillar book, John’s fertile mind was exploring new ideas. The great range of his work is now becoming increasingly apparent, together with the problem that so much of it is scattered in publications now difficult to obtain.
John’s last two or three years at the Victoria and Albert Museum were frustrated by administrative changes. His department had for many years suffered a severe problem in finding accommodation for the very large reserve collections of Indian arts and crafts, after the closure in the early 1960s of the old Commonwealth Institute Building for re-development into the campus of the new Imperial College of Science. The Indian collections had been stored in cramped and unsuitable conditions at several ‘temporary’ locations outside central London. John and his colleagues had spent several years of intensive work with architects and surveyors, on plans to develop accommodation in a building adjoining the Victoria and Albert Museum, which had been assigned to the Indian Department. The entire plan was cancelled without notice by a new administration, who had other ideas for the use of the building.
The frustration of this period may help us to understand the fervent intensity with which John threw himself, after retirement, into the pursuit of his personal interests in the antiquities and traditions of Ancient India. John was becoming increasingly absorbed with the parallels of ancient traditions and beliefs all over the world.
In addition to his other work, John was engaged during his last year at the Victoria and Albert with the preparation of his lecture series, “Symbol and Structure”, a study of the origin and meaning of the Buddhist stupa, which he was due to present at the Victoria and Albert from 3rd to 6th April 1978, a few weeks after retiring.
John saw the stupa, not as a funerary monument solely for the enshrinement of relics, but as a symbol of the ‘Renewal of Life’. The drawing which accompanies this article was made for the leaflet which announced the series. A reconstruction of the ruins of the Great stupa at Amaravati, surrounded by the pradaksinapatha with the four great gateways at the four quarters, is surmounted by a drawing of one of the great sculptured slabs from the dome, depicting the stupa in its mature state, and now in the British Museum. The great Axial Pillar erected at the heart of all early stupas can be seen emerging from the summit of the dome.
Later in 1978, and during 1979, John toured India, and presented his lectures. John was a charismatic lecturer, with a beautiful voice, and an originality of approach which engaged listeners, attention. A successful lecture depends upon vivid presentation, with much of the visual material suitable for instant viewing. A written article requires carefully composed structure and accurate references, and illustrations which bear close and prolonged examination. John bridges the transition with skill and care.
In 1983-84, John was awarded a Senior Fellowship at the Center for Advanced Studies in the Visual Arts in the National Gallery of Art, Washington, U.S.A. From 1985, he held a year’s appointment as Visiting Professor of the History of Indian Art at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, U.S.A.
John’s disablement from his old wartime injury worsened considerably, and was accentuated by the onset of arthritis. John fought bravely against the increasing difficulty in travel, and continued to attend conferences and symposia when possible, and to publish his work. In the summer of 1993, after a series of slight strokes, John entered Residential Care. Though no longer able to undertake active work, John’s spirit remained strong. It gave him great pleasure to see illustrated versions of some of his lecture scripts published in the twice-yearly Journal of the Research Into Lost Knowledge Organisation, a small historical society of which John had been President Emeritus since 1982. As he grew older, John had become increasingly absorbed with the power of archaic myth.
Towards the end of 1995, John suffered another serious stroke, which left him in a very frail health. He was very well cared for, and quietly contented. Towards the end of 1996, John had great pleasure from a letter from his lifelong friend Gira Sarabhai of Ahmedabad, to tell him that she had decided to have the seven issues of the Journal of Indian Textile History, which John had edited for the Calico Museum from the time of its foundation, re-printed. The Journal contained a series of John’s important early pioneer articles on the history of Indian textiles, which have long been unavailable to readers. John’s health finally failed in January 1997, and he died very peacefully during the night of 23rd January. If one would have wished for John to receive better understanding at some periods of his life, a future of bright recognition shines for John. The new edition of the Journal of Indian Textile History, re-published by the Sarabhai Foundation, has been issued, beautifully printed, and boxed as a set, dedicated as a tribute to John. The Calico Museum of Textiles, which John had helped Gira Sarabhai to found, has been declared a National Heritage, and taken over by the Government of Gujarat, to be preserved and administered permanently.
Here I have shown the circumstances in which John published his work in various journals and how his intentions to publish a book were frustrated. We were concerned that his work was so scattered. Two separate proposals were, in fact, received to publish collections of his articles, but both collapsed, due to publishers going out-of-business during the recession.
John had given copies of all his published articles since retirement from the Victoria and Albert Museum, to the National Archive of Art and Design, the archive department of the National Art Library, Victoria and Albert Museum. A full archive of his work is thus permanently preserved, and available for study (by prior appointment) under reference library conditions.
John also gave to the archive his very large collection of Research Files, containing photocopies and offprints upon classified subjects, and some of his correspondence with other scholars, which he had begun to collect and assemble while still at the Victoria and Albert Museum, and continued to enrich during his travels after retirement. It would be some time before the John Irwin Library of Research Files could be available for extensive consultation, because some of the material is fragile, and some of the files are too closely packed to handle easily, and will need to be sub-divided. This will, however, be a very valuable archive for the future.
When John’s failing health made it obvious, a few years ago, that it would be increasingly difficult for him to produce new work, John and I decided, upon our own initiative, to continue one or two of the ‘abandoned proposals’ for collections of his work which we deemed to be worthwhile, and also planned one or two collections of our own choosing. Free from the demands of the agencies who had made the original proposals, we were able to develop John’s work to his own ideas. We intended to await until such time as our work was finished, and take our own steps to approach suitable publishers. It gave John great pleasure, as his strength declined, to know that this was being done.
There is perhaps more to producing a book, than a ‘bright idea’, and great enthusiasm. We hope to begin the publication of these small collections of John’s work planned and begun in his lifetime.
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