Stefan Norblin: The Indian Maharajas’ Polish Painter

“Adorned with exotic Stefan Norblin murals” – this is how the Taj Umaid Bhawan Palace hotel in Jodhpur (Rajasthan, India) advertises one of its suites. But who was Stefan Norblin – a man with a Polish first name and a French surname – and how did he end up in that hot, dry area of western India?

To help this unlikely story unfold, we need to take a step back, to another time and place. In 1774 a French painter named Jean-Pierre Norblin de La Gourdaine was invited to work in Poland by the Czartoryski family, one of the major families of nobility of that time. Norblin de La Gourdaine remained in Poland for the next 30 years. He left behind a legacy of four sons (one of whom established a Polish branch of the family), an art school, and many beautiful paintings. Poland owes him not only the education of a number of its painters but many works of both artistic and historical importance, including those depicting Warsaw and others documenting the anti-Russian insurrection which he happened to witness (the rebellion was led by Tadeusz Kościuszko, who had earlier fought in the American War of Independence). That Polish rebellion, which Norblin de La Gourdaine joined and supported, failed and became one of the events that ushered in a long period of Poland’s partition and subjugation to Russian, Austrian and Prussian rule.

Throughout that period the artist’s talent was passed on to subsequent generations. One of Norblin de La Gourdaine’s sons was also a painter, another one a musician. And so it happened that the painter’s genes emerged again with his great-grandson, Juliusz Stefan Norblin de la Gourdaine, usually called Stefan Norblin. By the time of his birth in 1892, his branch of family had become Polish and Stefan Norblin was born in Warsaw (then under Russian rule). While his great-grandfather had watched Poland’s defeat and loss of independence, Stefan Norblin lived to see Poland regain its independence after the First World War. And just as his great-grandfather supported the anti-Russian uprising of Poles, Stefan Norblin fought in Poland’s successful war against the invading Bolsheviks in 1920. However, when the Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union attacked Poland again in 1939, Norblin and his wife Lena Żelichowska left the country.

The outbreak of the Second World War witnessed Poles fleeing in a number of directions, with India arguably the least likely destination. Naturally however, many Polish citizens would seek refuge in countries where Poland had a foreign mission, as it did in Bombay. It is estimated that in the early stages of the Second World War approximately 300 Polish citizens managed to make their way through Romania and Turkey to Bombay. (The story of a few thousand Polish citizens, mostly children, who settled in India after their release from the Soviet Union, is one for another time.) Among that small group of refugees were Stefan Norblin and his wife. Along the way Norblin reportedly also worked for a year as painter for the royal family of Iraq. Their son, Andrzej, was born in India (in Bombay, 1944).

The war shaped Norblin’s life and work in one more way. While a large part of the world was engulfed by the bloody conflict in India, in an area which is now Rajasthan, a maharaja, the ruler of a semi-independent “princely state” of Jodhpur, was overseeing the building of his new palace. The general work was completed in 1943 and as the king was called Umaid Singh the structure same to be known as Umaid Bhavan (bhavan means “palace”). Since 1943, the interior design work had begun but, as the story goes, the furniture which the maharaja ordered from London was sunk when the ship that was carrying it was hit by a German submarine. As Norblin happened to be in India at the same time, he ended up being employed to fill in the gap created by the destruction of the furniture by designing new furniture and preparing the paintings. Norblin also decorated the king’s hunting lodge located at some distance from the palace.

Also during the war years, Norblin produced numerous beautiful paintings destined for the palace of the king of Morvi in what is now the state of Gujarat in western India. Finally, he painted portraits and some other works for the rulers of Ramgarh. Thus, counting in the royal family of Iraq, Norblin managed to work for four monarchs during his war-time refuge.

Norblin’s frescoes and paintings can be found, among other places, in the throne room and the hallway.  But the fact that they are nowadays advertised as “exotic” does not really mean they were exotic to an Indian eye and based on motives brought from Poland. What Norblin sought to create both in Morvi and in Johpur were works with Oriental motives for an Oriental ruler (albeit by a Polish painter). It is a curious collection of mythological scenes borrowed from Indian epics such as the Ramayana, semi-fantastic images that included scenes of cheetahs hiding in the jungle, half-naked dark-skinned women with bent bodies, and a painting with apparently African motives. But there were also some much more realistic and conservative works: a battle scene, the king’s wedding procession, a portrait of the maharaja himself and also of the queen, this time on glass. In a way, this entire collection is exotic for both sides – Poles and Indians. In the paintings you find Hindu gods with traditional attributes but with distinctively European facial features: The goddess Durga appears to be wearing lipstick; while fighting the demon Ravana god Rama is depicted in a form much more reminiscent of a Greek god; in the tournament scene from the Ramayana epic the warriors in the background are wearing European armor; elsewhere half-naked women expose their breasts that are not as round as in traditional Indian sculpture. The painter clearly had done his homework in Indian mythology. As Norblin was an Art Deco painter, the work was defined as belonging to the Indo Deco style.

Stefan Norblin never returned to Poland. With Communist rule establishing itself in his homeland, many Poles living in refuge decided to stay away. Norblin and his wife opted to live in the United States, where they maintained a very simple existence. Norblin’s wife, Lena Żelichowska, once a famous Polish cinema star, now earned money by providing manicures. In 1952, aware that he would soon be turning blind due to glaucoma, Stefan Norblin took his own life in San Francisco.  His wife died six years later. Their son, Andrew Norblin, took to music – another area of artistic talent in the family – and became an accomplished guitarist.

Meanwhile the kings of India, having mostly been persuaded to join the new Republic of India (as the British had left in 1947) found themselves being gradually stripped of power by the new government. When later even their privy purses – a term that in reality meant a salary paid by the state was compensation for the takeover of their realms – were cancelled, the former rulers usually had no means to maintain their palaces, fortresses and other buildings. Many of the palaces fell into decay, some were retained as residences, while others were turned into state museums, and quite a few were converted into hotels. Umaid Bhavan saw all of these solutions: One part is still the seat of the royal family, one part became a museum, and since 1972 another part is a hotel that now belongs to the famous Taj Group, operator of some of the most famous high-end hotels across India.

Norblin’s work may not be widely known in a country as huge as India, but his legacy is remembered in Poland. A biopic, Stefan Norblin, was produced in 2007, and another movie on his work in India came out in 2011. This second film, called Chintraanjali. Stefan Norblin in India, is available here. Watching it will give you the chance to see Norblin’s work without going to Jodhpur (and paying for a Maharani suite in the hotel) or to the distant and privately owned Morvi.  For Polish speakers, there’s also an interesting website devoted to him here. As some of Norblin works in Umaid Bhavan were also touched by the hand of time, in 2006 the government of Poland sent a team that restored them in the course of the next few years.