Pupul Jayakar
| Pupul Jayakar | |
|---|---|
| Born |
11 September 1915 Etawah, Uttar Pradesh |
| Died | 29 March 1997 (aged 81) Bombay (now Mumbai) |
Pupul Jayakar née Mehta (11 September 1915 – 29 March 1997) was an Indian cultural activist and writer, best known for her work on the revival of traditional and village arts, handlooms, and handicrafts in post-independence India. She organised a series of Indian arts festivals in the 1980s in France, the US and Japan that helped to popularise Indian arts in the West. She was a friend and biographer to both the Nehru-Gandhi family and J Krishnamurti. Jayakar had a close relationship with three prime ministers: Jawaharlal Nehru, his daughter Indira Gandhi and her son Rajiv Gandhi. She served as cultural adviser to latter two, confirming her preeminence in cultural matters. She "presided colossus-like over the country's cultural scene for nearly 40 years," founding key arts and crafts institutions and promoting talented artists, and Indian arts and crafts through festivals and exhibitions worldwide.
In 1950, Jawaharlal Nehru invited her to study the handloom sector and work out plans for its revival. Eventually she served as chair of the All-India Handloom Board and Handicrafts and Handlooms Export Corporation and played an important role in the revival of Madhubani painting. Jayakar founded the National Crafts Museum in 1956 and the Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage (INTACH) in 1984 to restore and manage monuments and advocate for heritage property conservation. She was a founder and trustee of the Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts (IGNCA), established in 1985 and in 1990 founded the National Institute of Fashion Technology in New Delhi. She was awarded the Padma Bhushan (India's third highest civilian honour) in 1967.
Jayakar was born in 1915 at Etawah in the state of United Provinces (later known as Uttar Pradesh). Her father was a liberal intellectual and senior officer in the Indian Civil Service while her mother came from a Gujarati Brahmin family from Surat, where Pupul spent her yearly summer breaks. She had a brother, Kumaril Mehta, and four sisters, Purnima, Premlata, Amarganga and Nandini Mehta. Her father's work took the family to many parts of India, where she got the opportunity to absorb local crafts and traditions early on in life.
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