Page 115 - Eye of the beholder

Langhammer and Käthe set up a studio in their apartment at Nepean Sea Road in Bombay, and played a significant role in the artistic community of the city. Langhammer as the first Art Director held an open salon for artists to discuss their work every Sunday. He exposed the young Progressives to European and Indian art and encouraged them to examine and dissect these paintings. According to S H Raza, “He used to put in front of me paintings by Raphael, El Greco, Monet and Cezanne; paintings of the Persian, Rajput and Mughal miniatures and he would say, ‘Look at these paintings and tell me what is happening there.’ It was a tough job but it was an eminent awareness of form which started developing in me which I started to follow in time to come.”
Langhammer’s own art praxis flourished in India, and he exhibited frequently at the Bombay Art Society. His fellow émigré and art critic Rudolf von Leyden, reviewing one of Langhammer’s exhibitions at the University Convocation Hall in Bombay in 1945, wrote, “The creative play on the sheer beauty of colour has been the preoccupation of many artists, past and present... for years he has struggled to break down the fence and reach the realm of pure colour... I would not be surprised if the impact of Indian light and colour on his artistic temperament has accelerated the process and will continue to influence it.” As an influential member of the Bombay Art Society Committee, Langhammer had collaborated with Kekoo Gandhi, who founded Chemould Art Gallery to design frames of a superior quality for individual artworks.
An accomplished artist, Langhammer was inspired by the city of Bombay having painted the Banganga Tank and Walkeswar Temples on Malabar Hill. He travelled across India and was enthused by the rich texture and ethnicity of her rustic countryside documenting these Indian scenes on his canvasses; its street views, people in marketplaces and even well heeled elite in portraits done in European impasto styles. When he visited Kashmir he was spellbound by the picturesque beauty of the majestic Himalayan landscape and Houseboats on the Dal Lake. The light and colour he experienced in India led him to express the fugitive and transient element of light wit dazzling and brilliant colour. According to von Leyden, the colors and light he encountered became his obsession. “I’m in it for color,” said Langhammer at the Bombay Art Society.
The thematic content of Langhammer constituted two genres namely portraits and landscapes. His painting style was on the threshold between realism and impressionist. He painted with broad sweeping brush strokes and rapid brush movement capturing significant moment of light drenched landscapes, city crowds, the tranquility of mountains and the rustic chaos. He
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