Leathercraft at Santiniketan
Leatherwork in Santiniketan originated from a broader movement to revive the traditional crafts of rural Bengal and reintroduce skilled occupations to village life. In the early decades of the twentieth century, Rabindranath Tagore turned his attention to the villages surrounding Santiniketan and began to organise a programme of rural reconstruction that placed work, skill, and livelihood at the centre of education. In the early 1920s, at Sriniketan, he established a rural reconstruction centre where agriculture and village industries were developed as regular institutional activity. Craft entered this programme as part of daily labour. Weaving, carpentry, pottery, dyeing, and leatherwork were taught alongside cultivation and rural service, and workshops became working spaces where students and village artisans learned trades. Speaking about the purpose of this effort, Rabindranath expressed the principle that guided the work: "The drama of national self-expression could not be real if rural India were banished."Within this programme, leatherwork was developed through the initiative of Rathindranath Tagore. In 1928, during his stay in England, he began studying leatherwork and developed a lasting interest in the craft. After returning to Santiniketan later that year, he introduced leatherwork to students and continued to practise it within the training system at Sriniketan. In 1930, after formal vocational instruction in Europe with Pratima Devi, he established a regular leather workshop at Silpa Sadan. Ink and Embossing on Leather by RathindranathTagore From 1932, the workshop produced a growing range of leather goods—handbags, book covers, portfolios, trays, and domestic objects—made from vegetable-tanned goat and sheepskin and decorated through embossing, stencil work, and batik techniques. These objects soon appeared in exhibitions and institutional displays, carrying the name Santiniketan and establishing a recognizable tradition of leather craftsmanship rooted in the revival of rural craft.
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