Richard Bartholomew Biography 
Richard Bartholomew was a great Indian artist and art critic of Burma origin. He migrated to India during Second World War and settled in Delhi. He also earned fame as photographer, painter, poet, and writer. His son Padma Shree Pablo Bartholomew is a photojournalist and professional photographer based in Delhi who shot to fame after his iconic picture of a half-buried child victim of the Bhopal Gas Tragedy shocked the whole world. The picture also earned him World Press Photo of the Year award in 1984. His wife Rati Batra was also a Partition refugee, a theatre activist and one of the founding members of the theatre group, Yatrik.
Richard Lawrence Bartholomew was born in 1926 in Tavoy, British Burma. He fled from Tavoy during the Second World War to escape from Japanese and reached Assam. Later he moved to Delhi, where he got settled and pursued a career as well. He completed his graduation and post-graduation at St. Stephen's College, Delhi in 1950. He met his future wife Rati Batra while studying at Delhi. She originally belonged to Pakistan, who moved to India following partition. Bartholomew lived in India as a stateless citizen until 1967. Later he got citizenship of India, and lived his entire life here.
Richard was a multifaceted personality who exhibited his talents in different forms of art such as photography, painting etc. He was also a thinker and poet, and a curator and art critic too. He was one of the first to initiate dialogues with painters. In the 1950s he held his solo photography exhibitions in major cities like Delhi and Mumbai. As an art critic, he published his reviews in some of the leading dailies of the country.
Published: November 07, 2018
Updated: November 07, 2018
