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{{Short description|Hungarian art critic, writer, and Indologist}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=July 2025}}
{{Infobox person
| name = Charles Fabri
| image =
| alt =
| caption =
| birth_name = Károly Lajos Fábri
| birth_date = 18 November 1899
| birth_place = [[Budapest]], Hungary
| death_date = 7 July 1968
| death_place =
| other_names =
| occupation = Art critic
| years_active =
| known_for =
| notable_works =
}}
'''Charles Fabri''' (18 November 1899 – 7 July 1968) was a Hungarian art critic, writer, and [[Indologist]]. He was a former curator of the Kern Institute Library, [[Leiden University]], curator of the [[Lahore Museum]], Pakistan, and later lecturer at the [[National Museum of India]], New Delhi, before lecturing at the [[School of Planning and Architecture, New Delhi|Architecture and Art Departments of Delhi Polytechnic]].

==Early life and education==
Károly Lajos Fábri was born on 18 November 1899 in Budapest, Hungary, into a Jewish family.<ref name=WHO2017>{{cite web |date=9 February 2017 |title=Fabri, Charles Louis – Persons of Indian Studies by Prof. Dr. Klaus Karttunen |url=https://whowaswho-indology.info/1871/fabri-charles-louis/ |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240904102039/https://whowaswho-indology.info/1871/fabri-charles-louis/ |archive-date=4 September 2024 |access-date=7 November 2023}}</ref><ref name=Dutch2017>{{cite web |date=6 January 2017 |title=Fabri, Charles Louis – Home of Dutch Studies |url=https://www.dutchstudies-satsea.nl/deelnemers/fabri-charles-louis/ |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240901191705/https://www.dutchstudies-satsea.nl/deelnemers/fabri-charles-louis/ |archive-date=1 September 2024 |access-date=7 November 2023 |website=www.dutchstudies-satsea.nl |language=nl}}</ref> He had one older brother and his father owned a chain of hotels.<ref name=Dalmia2013.99/> During the First World War, he served in the army, and after, as he began university, his family lost its fortune.<ref name=Dalmia2013.99/>

In 1924 Fabri completed a masters in philosophy, psychology and Germanic philology from the [[University of Pécs]], and three years later gained a doctorate in philosophy.<ref name=Dutch2017/> At university he also undertook a personal study of [[Indology]] and [[Indian art]].<ref name=Dutch2017/> He gained his PhD in philosophy in 1927.<ref name=Dutch2017/>

==Career==
Between 1927 and 1934 Fabri was curator of the Kern Institute Library, [[Leiden University]].<ref name=Dutch2017/> From 1930 to 1934 Fabri worked with [[Aurel Stein]] on the [[Archaeological Survey of India]] in India,<ref name=Khullar2012>{{cite book |last1=Khullar |first1=Sonal |editor1-last=Dalmia |editor1-first=Vasudha |editor2-last=Sadana |editor2-first=Rashmi |title=The Cambridge Companion to Modern Indian Culture |date=2012 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-0-521-51625-9 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=2L4gAwAAQBAJ&pg=PA182 |language=en |chapter=9. Nationalist tradition and modernist art|page=182}}</ref> and accompanied Stein to India in 1932 to work on the Indus Valley excavations.<ref name=Dalmia2013.99/>

===1933–1936===
In 1933 [[Rabindranath Tagore]] invited Fabri to teach art history at [[Santiniketan]].<ref name=Sundaram2010.424>Sundaram, pp. 424–425</ref><ref name=Leeuw1978>{{cite book |last1=Khan |first1=Ahmed Nabi |title=Senarat Paranavitana Commemoration Volume |date=1978 |publisher=E. J. Brill |isbn=90-04-05455-3 |editor1-last=Leeuw |editor1-first=J. E. van Lohuizen-de |volume=VII |location=Leiden |page=120 |language=en |chapter=The Indus Valley Script: A Survey of the Attempts at its Decipherment |editor2-last=Prematilleke |editor2-first=L. |editor3-last=Indrapala |editor3-first=K. |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=quL7EAAAQBAJ&pg=PA120}}</ref>

===Lahore (1937)===
[[File:Amrita Sher-Gil Lahore 1937 Exhibition.jpg|thumb|right|Exhibition opening at Lahore 1937]]
Fabri became a British citizen in 1937.<ref name=Khullar2012/> That year he first met artist [[Amrita Sher-Gil]] in November, when as art critic for the ''[[Civil and Military Gazette]]'', he reported on her [[Amrita Sher-Gil's paintings at Lahore (1937)|solo exhibition]] held in the ballroom of [[Faletti's Hotel]] in [[Lahore]], [[Presidencies and provinces of British India|British India]].<ref name=Sundaram2010.418>Sundaram, pp. 418–423</ref> There, with the assistance of [[Diwan Chaman Lall]], Fabri acquired ''[[The Little Girl in Blue]]'' and it remained in his family until being sold in 2018.<ref name=Sundaram2010.418/><ref name=Tripathi2018>{{cite news |last1=Tripathi |first1=Smita |title=Tyeb Mehta and Amrita Sher-Gil to lead Sotheby's first auction in India |url=https://www.telegraphindia.com/culture/arts/tyeb-mehta-and-amrita-sher-gil-to-lead-sotheby-s-first-auction-in-india/cid/1676887 |access-date=12 November 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231113052353/https://www.telegraphindia.com/culture/arts/tyeb-mehta-and-amrita-sher-gil-to-lead-sotheby-s-first-auction-in-india/cid/1676887|archive-date=13 November 2023|work=www.telegraphindia.com |date=28 November 2018 |language=en}}</ref>{{efn|Fabri either bought it or Sher-Gil gifted to him.<ref name=Sundaram2010.184>Sundaram, p. 184</ref>}} He also assisted in the sale of [[The Vina Player]] to the Lahore Museum.<ref name=Sundaram2010.424/> He wrote that "Miss Sher-Gil's oeuvre is essentially modern without being fantastic. Simplification and the grasping of important essentials are the key-note in most of her work and there is a certain quality of decorativeness in most of her canvases. Her most fascinating subjects are women and children."<ref name=CMGDec1941>{{cite news |title=Well known artist dies in Lahore |work=Civil & Military Gazette (Lahore) |date=7 December 1941 |page=4}}</ref> In an essay he wrote after her death, he called her a "miraculous marriage of Indian and Western, brought up in the discipline of western painting, suffused in her mental make-up with Indian feeling and attitudes".<ref name=Dalmia2013.99>Dalmia, pp.99–105</ref>

===1938 onwards===
[[File:Inder Kumar Gujral, Indrani Rahman with Ram Rahman, Satish Gujral, MF Husain, Charles Fabri.png|thumb|Inder Kumar Gujral, Indrani Rahman with Ram Rahman, Satish Gujral, MF Husain, Charles Fabri]]
Between 1938 and 1945 he was director of the [[Punjab Exploration Fund]].<ref name=Dutch2017/>

Between 1945 and 1947 Fabri was curator of the [[Lahore Museum]].<ref name=Dutch2017/> In 1947 he married Ratna Mathur.<ref name=Dalmia2013.99/> He took up Indian citizenship in 1947.<ref name=Khullar2012/> From 1947 to 1950 he lectured at the [[National Museum of India]], New Delhi.<ref name=Dutch2017/>

For ''[[The Statesman (India)|The Statesman]]'' he became critic for dance, drama and art.<ref name=Sundaram2010.424/>

In 1947 Fabri published ''Indian Flamingo: A Novel of Modern India''.<ref name=Sundaram2010.432>Sundaram, p. 432</ref> Set in the 1930s it features a Lahore Museum director falling in love with a 23 year old painter based on Sher-Gil.<ref name=Sundaram2010.432/> The dedication in the book reads " to the beloved, undying memory of AMRITA and her sisters and brothers of the new India".<ref name=Sundaram2010.432/>

From 1950 to 1959 Fabri lectured at the [[School of Planning and Architecture, New Delhi|Architecture and Art Departments of Delhi Polytechnic]].<ref name=Dutch2017/> His masterpiece, ''Fundamental: History of Indian Art'' (1956–1958), created with the assistance of the [[Bollingen Foundation]], remains unpublished.<ref name=Dalmia2013.99/>

==Death and legacy==
Fabri died in July 1968, around two years after being diagnosed with throat cancer.<ref name=Dalmia2013.99/> He is remembered for his contributions to Indian art, and to recognising Odissi as a classical dance.<ref name=Dalmia2013.99/>

==Selected publications==
===Thesis===
*''William James: egy filozófus arcképe (William Jones: the portrait of a philosopher)'' (1928), Pécs (Specimina Dissertationum Facultatis Philosophiae Regiae Hungaricae Universitatis Elisabethianae Quinqueecclesiensis 6). – PhD thesis Pécs.

===Articles===
*{{cite journal |last1=Fábri |first1=C. L. |title=Two Notes on Indian Head-dress |journal=Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society |date=July 1931 |volume=63 |issue=3 |pages=597–601 |doi=10.1017/S0035869X00110627 |url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-the-royal-asiatic-society/article/abs/two-notes-on-indian-headdress/02775A4A97610EE02C0A524AF20C17B6 |language=en |issn=1474-0591|url-access=subscription }}
*{{cite journal |last1=Fábri |first1=C. L. |title=The Punch-marked Coins: A Survival of the Indus Civilization |journal=Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society |date=April 1935 |volume=67 |issue=2 |pages=307–318 |doi=10.1017/S0035869X00086482 |url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-the-royal-asiatic-society/article/abs/punchmarked-coins-a-survival-of-the-indus-civilization/45C2113AC9BBF2831F304035EAA9B1E2 |language=en |issn=2051-2066|url-access=subscription }}
*{{cite journal |last1=Fabri |first1=Charles L. |title=Review of Drāviḍa and Kerala in the Art of Travancore |journal=Artibus Asiae |date=1954 |volume=17 |issue=3/4 |pages=328–330 |doi=10.2307/3249065 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/3249065 |issn=0004-3648|url-access=subscription }}

===Books===
*{{cite book |last1=Fabri |first1=C. L. |title=Annual Report Of The Archaeological Survey Of India For The Years 1930-31, 1931-32, 1933-34 And 1933–34 |date=1936 |publisher=Manager of Publications |location=Delhi |url=https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.35543/page/n1/mode/2up}}
*{{cite book |last1=Fabri |first1=Charles Louis |title=A History of Indian Dress |date=1960 |publisher=Orient Longmans |location=Calcutta |url=https://archive.org/details/historyofindiand01fabr/page/n9/mode/2up}}
*{{cite book |last1=Fabri |first1=Charles Louis |title=An introduction to Indian architecture |date=1963 |publisher=Asia Publishing House |location=New York |url=https://archive.org/details/introductiontoin00fabr}}
*''Discovering Indian sculpture : a brief history'' (1970)
*{{cite book |last1=Fabri |first1=Charles Louis |title=History of the art of Orissa |date=1974 |publisher=Orient Longman |location=Bombay |url=https://archive.org/details/dli.ministry.25901/mode/2up}}
*Bethlenfalvy, Géza, Charles Louis Fabri: his life and works, comp. and ed., New Delhi 1980

==See also==
*[[Indrani Rahman]]<ref name=Thobani2017>{{cite book |last1=Thobani |first1=Sitara |title=Indian Classical Dance and the Making of Postcolonial National Identities: Dancing on Empire's Stage |date=2017 |publisher=Routledge |location=Abingdon, Oxon |isbn=978-1-315-38734-5 |pages=35-36 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=pCglDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA35 |language=en |chapter=2. Setting the scene: a transcultural history of Indian dance}}</ref>
*[[Priyambada Mohanty Hejmadi]]

==Notes==
{{notelist}}

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==Bibliography==
* {{Cite book |last=Dalmia|first=Yashodhara |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Mj3mlgEACAAJ |title=Amrita Sher-Gil: A Life |date=2013 |publisher=Penguin Books |location=Gurugram |isbn=978-0-14-342026-2 |language=en}}
* {{cite book |last1=Sundaram |first1=Vivan |title=Amrita Sher-Gil: A Self-Portrait in Letters and Writings |date=2010 |publisher=Tulika Books |location=New Delhi |volume=1|pages=1-417|isbn=978-81-89487-59-1}}
* {{cite book |last1=Sundaram |first1=Vivan |title=Amrita Sher-Gil: A Self-Portrait in Letters and Writings |date=2010 |publisher=Tulika Books |location=New Delhi |volume=2|pages=418-821|isbn=978-81-89487-59-1}}

[[Category:1899 births]]
[[Category:1968 deaths]]
[[Category:Hungarian Indologists]]
[[Category:Hungarian Jews]]
[[Category:Hungarian art critics]]
[[Category:Hungarian art curators]]
[[Category:Hungarian lecturers]]
[[Category:University of Pécs alumni]]

Charles Fabri - Revision history

Rrajani at 18:08, 21 October 2025