Obituaries of John Conran Irwin

John Irwin (1917–97) helped to transform scholarly understanding of the Indo-European textile trade and of the interchange of design ideas between East and West. He joined the Victoria & Albert Museum as Assistant Keeper of the Indian section at the end of WWII and became Keeper in1959. In 1970 he became head of a new Oriental Department that combined the Indian and Far East collections.

From The Times, 22 February 1997

John Irwin's seminal studies of Indian textiles and his later researches into the roots of Indian artistic expression contributed greatly to Western appreciation of the culture of the subcontinent. In the historical study of Indian textiles, in particular, he helped to transform scholarly understanding both of the Indo-European textile trade and of the complicated mutual interchange of design ideas and motifs between East and West. His lectures on this and other subjects were enthralling. He kept audiences hanging on to his every word as he developed his arguments like the narrative of a detective mystery.

As Keeper of the Indian Department at the Victoria and Albert Museum, he found himself much involved with attempts to find suitable accommodation for the huge body of the collection which had lost its original suite of galleries in buildings behind the Imperial Institute in 1955. The cream of the collection was arranged in three galleries in the V&A, but the rest was divided and housed in various locations. Irwin argued for, and in 1970 became the head of a new Oriental Department which brought together the Indian section with a new Far Eastern section. Much of his energy during his last years at the V&A, when he was also Senior Keeper and at times deputising for the Director, Sir John Pope-Hennessy, was spent working on a plan, sadly abandoned later, to develop the Huxley building (now the Henry Cole Wing) as an oriental museum.

Although born in Madras, the son of a coffee planter, John Conran Irwin was still a child when his father retired and returned to England. He spent much of his boyhood in Dorset where, despite a conventional education at Canford School, Wimborne, he nevertheless grew up something of a rebel.

On leaving school he became a journalist, working for a number of newspapers including the Daily Mirror, and the New Statesman where, under Kingsley Martin, he wrote theatre criticism.

With the outbreak of the Second World War he took a temporary commission with the Gordon Highlanders, but a leg injury sustained in an accident in 1942 while training motorcycle contact officers brought his active service to an end. He was left permanently slightly lame. Irwin was posted back to India as ADC to the Governor of Bengal, Sir Richard Casey. He subsequently served two further Governors as ADC and then as non-political private secretary.

In India he was exposed to the dramatic events of the independence movement, served as secretary to the Bengal Famine Relief Fund in 1944, and formed lasting friendships with Indian scholars and intellectuals. In Calcutta, he also began his career as an art historian, writing jointly with the progressive poet Bishnu Dey the first biography of one of the pioneers of the Indian modern art movement, Jamini Roy.

Returning to England at the end of the war, Irwin joined the Victoria and Albert Museum as Assistant Keeper of the Indian section. Almost immediately he was put to work as executive secretary to the Royal Academy's major exhibition of the Arts of India and Pakistan. Initially planned to be held in 1940, the exhibition, which ran through the winter of 1947 until 1948, and its catalogue, have come to symbolise the beginning of a new post-independence era in Western appreciation of Indian art.

During the subsequent period, the study of Indian art history was to be transformed with the writings of both Indian and British scholars, including Irwin's immediate colleagues at the V&A - W G Archer, appointed Keeper of the Indian Department in 1949, and Robert Skelton, Irwin's successor.

On Archer's retirement in 1959, Irwin was promoted to Keeper of the Indian Section. At first, despite his greater personal interest in sculpture and antiquities, he was put in charge of the department's large and important collection of textiles. The study he carried out on these was to have a major impact on scholarship in the field and also to lead to strong overseas connections.

He was for a long time closely associated with the Calico Museum of Textiles in Ahmedabad, helping it to build its collections, and co-editing its journal, The Journal of Indian Textile History, where much of his textile research first appeared. Irwin's involvement in the Calico Museum was characteristic of a broader sense of responsibility to India. It was he who arranged for an Ahmedabad house front, deemed impracticable for the V&A to keep after the loss of its Indian galleries, to be sold to the Calico Museum, where it formed, appropriately, the facade of the building.

Irwin's textile research resulted in a number of major publications, among them 'Kashmir Shawls' (1955) and 'Origins of Chintz' (1970). He also produced, with Margaret Hall, the first two catalogues of the Calico Museum's collections, 'Indian Painted and Printed Fabrics' (1971) and 'Indian Embroideries' (1973).

In his later career, and particularly after his retirement, Irwin embarked on an exploration of the foundations of Indian art, the history, archaeology, and artistic influence of the earliest surviving examples of Indian monumental sculpture in stone - the pillars erected by the Emperor Asoka in the 3rd century BC. His argument that the origin of many monuments lay in the cosmic religion predating revealed or written traditions, which he also later applied to his study of early Christian monuments, excited immense interest as well as some controversy.

A slim, handsome man, Irwin was a tireless worker, continuing his meticulous and characteristically scholarly research until recently despite the restrictions of ill-health. He leaves a rich legacy both in the two institutions with which he was most closely involved, and through the writings of a vigorous and original mind.

Irwin is survived by his three sons, and by his wife, Helen, from whom he was separated.

Reproduced with kind permission of The Times
© Times Newspapers Limited

From the The Daily Telegraph, 23 March 1997

John Irwin, the former Keeper of the Indian Department of the Victoria and Albert Museum who has died aged 79, belonged to a generation of curators and scholars whose work changed the face of Indian art history.

When first appointed at the museum, Irwin was put in charge of the Indian Department's large and important collection of textiles. The research he went on to carry out had a lasting impact on the historical study of Indian textiles and transformed scholarly understanding both of the Indo-European textile trade and of the complicated mutual interchange of design ideas and motifs between East and West. It also led to Irwin's forming close ties with the subcontinent.

From the early 1950s he was closely associated with the Calico Museum of Textiles in Ahmedabad, working with its founder, Gira Sarabhai and with other Indian and European scholars. He helped the museum to build up its collections and co-edited its journal, the 'Journal of Indian Textile History', where many of his early textile studies first appeared.

This research also resulted in valuable publications. His books, 'Kashmir Shawls' (1955) and 'Origins of Chintz' (1970) with Katherine Brett and the two Calico Museum catalogues, 'Indian Painted and Printed Fabrics' and 'Indian Embroideries' which he wrote with Margaret Hall, are standard works in this field.

When the V&A was disposing of large swathes of its Indian collection in the 1950s (a time when few curators worried about issues of restitution), Irwin arranged for an Ahmedabad house front, originally acquired in the 1880s, to be returned to Ahmedabad where it now forms the façade of the Calico Museum.

John Conran Irwin was born on August 5, 1917 in Madras. Both his parents came from coffee-planting families in Coorg, but the family returned to Britain, to Devon, on his father's retirement.
Young John attended Canford School, but did not shine academically. His main interests at school were mechanics and a clandestine motorcycle on which he toured the countryside disguised by goggles and a trench coat. On one occasion he encountered T E Lawrence who lived nearby at Cloudshill and had a long discussion about motorcycles, but only later discovered Lawrence's identity.
After school Irwin embarked on a career in journalism, working for the 'Sunday Citizen', the 'Daily Pictorial', the 'Daily Mirror' and the 'New Statesman' where, during Kingsley Martin's editorship, he wrote theatre criticism.

On the outbreak of the Second World War he took a temporary commission with the Gordon Highlanders. He was promoted captain, but a leg injury he sustained in 1942 brought his active service to an end, and left him slightly lame.

He was sent out to India as ADC and private secretary in three successive Governors of Bengal. One of them was Sir Richard Casey, whose wife encouraged what was to become Irwin's passionate and lifelong interest in Indian art and culture.

He made friends with Indian scholars and intellectuals and joined forces with the progressive poet Bishnu Dey to write the first biography of Jamini Roy, one of the first of India's 'modern' artists. With Dey he travelled all over the Indian countryside - an experience which was to prove invaluable background when in 1944 he became secretary to the Bengal Famine Relief Fund.

After the war, Irwin returned to England and joined the V&A as Assistant Keeper of the Indian Section, then headed by the archaeologist, K de B Codrington. Irwin's first task was to act as executive secretary to the ground-breaking exhibition 'The Arts of India and Pakistan' which was held at Burlington House in the winter of 1947-48. He himself contributed the section on Indian textiles and bronzes to the exhibition catalogue.

In the 1950s the V&A's Indian collections lost their home in the old Indian Museum off Exhibition Road. Much of Irwin's energy, particularly after he became Keeper of the Department in 1959, was directed to the search for alternative accommodation.

In 1970 he became Keeper of a newly formed Oriental Department, combining the Indian and Far Eastern sections and prepared the details (later abandoned) to create an Oriental wing, in what is now the museum's Henry Cole Wing.

In his later career, Irwin was able to develop the interest (which had underpinned much of his earlier research) in fundamental questions about the origins and transmission of art forms. He embarked on an original study of the history of the earliest surviving examples of Indian monumental stone sculpture - the pillars erected by Emperor Ashoka in the 3rd century BC.

This work, which excited much interest and some controversy, resulted in a rich body of published material and a fascinating archive now deposited at the V&A.

Irwin leaves rich legacies, both in the institutions with which he was involved and in the form of his written works. His writings constitute a wealth of meticulous scholarship and a permanent reminder of the value of testing ideas and thoughts to their - sometimes unexpected - conclusions.

From 1956 to 1957 he served as a UNESCO expert on museum planning and advised museums in Indonesia and Malaysia.

John Irwin was a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, of the Royal Asiatic Society and of the Society of Antiquaries.

Irwin always had a project to take up his spare moments. He took an interest in local history, gardened and continued to tinker with motorcycles.

He married, in 1947, Helen Scott (nee Fletcher); they had three sons.

Reproduced with kind permission of The Telegraph
© The Telegraph

From The Independent, 25 January 1997

The work of a devotee, said an Indian sage, brings glory to knowledge and makes him the cosmic yogi.

John Irwin may have known such mottoes during his researches in Indian arts and during his 19-year tenure as Keeper of the Indian Section at the Victoria and Albert Museum, but he brought to his findings the pragmatism of his English temperament: he related all abstruse ideas to concrete facts. Apart from his principal texts on Indian arts, he was able to communicate his knowledge in eloquent writing and the spoken word to both learned and lay audiences.

Born in Madras in 1917, the son of a coffee planter, he was educated from early childhood in England at Canford School in Dorset. He then chose to be a journalist, working for various publications included the 'New Statesman' under the radical editor Kingsley Martin.

On the declaration of war in 1939, he joined, as sub-lieutenant, the Gordon Highlanders, where he was promoted to the rank of captain. He was demobilised in 1942 when he injured a leg while training a company in motorcycle riding; this made him limp slightly in later years.

Intelligent, aware of the various facets of Indian life and with liberal humanist predilections, he was chosen in 1942 to be ADC to the Governor of Bengal, Sir Richard Casey. Irwin had the advantage of sharing with Mrs Casey, an unusually cultured colonial lady, his own findings about creative activities in Bengal.

He frequently visited the studio of the folk painter Jamini Roy and, in collaboration with the young progressive poet Bishnu Dey, he wrote the first book on this legendary artist, 'Jamini Roy' (1944).

This brought him into contact with leading figures in Indian art history: Dr Stella Kramrisch, the doyenne of Indian art history, Professor Nihar Ranjan Ray of Calcutta University and Professor Shahid Surawardy. Irwin was deeply impressed by the 2nd century BC sculptures of Barhut and some Asokan relics which he saw in the Calcutta museum.

He toured the alleged birthplace of Buddha in Lumbini, below Nepal, where he admired the inscribed Asokan pillars put up by the Maharaja Asoka, a Buddhist convert. Subsequent visits to Sarnath in Uttar Pradesh to see the domed shrine of the Stupa of the Buddha, put up on the site where Gautama delivered his first sermon, made such a great impression upon Irwin that he later undertook research in stupa architecture. The vision of the classic Sarnath image of Buddha was another image which made him turn, again and again, to the mastery of sculptural form achieved in the first six centuries AD in India.

Like E B Havell and Ananda Coomaraswamy, who had penetrated into the deeper foundations of Indian craft culture, Irwin became absorbed, especially through the craft of Bengali weavers, in the exquisite colours of Indian textiles. Before he returned to Britain in 1945, Irwin had taken down many research notes which were to be worked upon during leisure hours after his arduous duties as Assistant Keeper from 1946 in the Indian Section of the Victoria and Albert Museum. These researches later resulted in two exquisite books, 'Kashmir Shawls' (1955) and 'Origins of Chintz' (1970).

As a pioneer in the area of textiles research, Irwin was invited by the organisers of the Calico Museum in Ahmadabad, Gautam and Gira Sarabhai, to help to catalogue the finest collection of Indian textiles. This connection brought him to India several times and he edited the books 'Indian Painted and Printed Fabrics' (1971) and 'Indian Embroideries' (1973). These are precious records of the unexcelled weavers' and dyers' crafts in India.

Apart from Irwin's duties in the V&A, in 1947-48 he organised the Royal Academy's 'Winter Exhibition of the Arts of India and Pakistan' and wrote the introduction to the catalogue, which greatly extended the appreciation of India heritage.

Irwin, unlike many scholars based in the library or museum, devoted most of his time after retirement to lecturing in Britain, India and the United States, holding question-and-answer sessions to rapt audiences.

The affability of John Irwin's temperament and his capacity for communicating warmth built up many friendships between him and Indians: in the new cultural life friendships could be realised between Indian and Englishman not achieved in the earlier period of E M Forster and 'A Passage to India'

Reproduced with kind permission of Mulk Raj Anand and The Independent
© The Independent