Ananda Coomaraswamy

Ananda Kentish Coomaraswamy was born in Colombo, Ceylon, now Sri Lanka, to the Ceylonese Tamil legislator and philosopher Sir Muthu Coomaraswamy and his English wife Elizabeth Beeby. His father died when Ananda was 2 years old, and Ananda spent much of his childhood and education abroad.
Coomaraswamy moved to England in 1879 and attended Wycliffe College, a preparatory school in Stroud, Gloucestershire, at the age of 12. In 1900, he graduated from University College, London, with a degree in geology and botany. On June 19, 1902, Coomaraswamy married Ethel Mary Partridge, an English photographer, who then traveled with him to Ceylon. Their marriage lasted until 1913. Coomaraswamy's field work between 1902 and 1906 earned him a doctor of science for his study of Ceylonese mineralogy, and prompted the formation of the Geological Survey of Ceylon which he initially directed.[3] While in Ceylon, the couple collaborated on Mediaeval Sinhalese Art; Coomaraswamy wrote the text and Ethel provided the photographs. His work in Ceylon fueled Coomaraswamy's anti-Westernization[4] After their divorce, Partridge returned to England, where she later married the writer Philip Mairet. sentiments.
Coomaraswamy then met and married an Englishwoman who performed Indian song under the stage name Ratan Devi. They had two children, a son, Narada, and daughter, Rohini. He moved to the United States in 1917 to serve as the first Keeper of Indian art in the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. Narada was killed in a plane crash and an already ailing Ratan died shortly thereafter.[5]
Coomaraswamy married the American artist Stella Bloch, 29 years his junior, in November 1922. Through the 1920s, Coomaraswamy and his wife were part of the bohemian art circles in New York City, Coomaraswamy befriending Alfred Stieglitz and the artists who exhibited at Stieglitz's gallery. At the same time, he was studying Sanskrit and Pali religious literature as well as Western religious works. He wrote catalogues for the Museum of Fine Arts, and published his History of Indian and Indonesian Art in 1927.
After the couple divorced in 1930, they remained friends. Shortly thereafter, on November 18, 1930, Coomaraswamy married ArgentineLuisa Runstein, 28 years younger, who was working as a society photographer under the professional name Xlata Llamas. They had a son, Coomaraswamy's third child, Rama Ponnambalam, who became a physician and author of Catholic Traditionalist works.
In 1933 Coomaraswamy's title at the Museum of Fine Arts changed from curator to Fellow for Research in Indian, Persian, and Mohammedan Art.[4]
He served as curator in the Museum of Fine Arts, and was significant in bringing Eastern art to the West, until his death in Needham, Massachusetts in 1947. In fact, at the Museum of Fine Arts, he built the first large collection of Indian art in the United States.[6]
He also helped with the collection of Persian Art for the Freer Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. and the Museum of Fine Arts.
After Coomaraswamy's death, Doña Luisa acted as a guide and resource for students of his work.