Biography and john lockwood kipling

My father was not only a mine of knowledge and help, but a humorous, tolerant, and expert fellow-craftsman. — Rudyard Kipling, Something of Myself, 40.

His reports from the field on Indian handicraft practice were an important source for British craftsmen and designers in the late nineteenth century.

Most remarkably, he opposed the tide of Victorian imperialism and its concomitant attitudes of cultural superiority through his practical efforts on hehalf of Indian art. In his writings and even more in his work in the official art schools in India, he dignified and preserved the bases of native handicrafts against the often debilitating effects of misguided and wholly commercially oriented government policies.

— Mahrukh Tarapor 54-56.

...

John kipling grave

more recently, scholars have taken a more critical view, exploring his advocacy of traditional arts as being not in opposition to but rather in support of colonial power hierarchies. — Abigail McGowan 489.

... his impact, though perhaps more modes