>Monkbot: Task 18 (cosmetic): eval 9 templates: del empty params (3×); hyphenate params (7×); del |ref=harv (1×);

2020-12-08T20:41:09Z

Task 18 (cosmetic): eval 9 templates: del empty params (3×); hyphenate params (7×); del |ref=harv (1×);

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{{Infobox person
| name = Ratan Coomaraswamy
| image = Alice Coomara as Ratan Devi.jpg
| alt =
| caption = Ratan Devi with a [[tanpura]] in 1917 in Manhattan
| birth_name = Alice Ethel Richardson
| birth_date = {{Start date|October 1889}}
| birth_place = [[Sheffield, England]]
| death_date = {{Death date and age|1958|07|15|1889|10|01}}
| death_place = [[Boston, Massachusetts]]
| nationality = British
| spouse = [[Ananda Kentish Coomaraswamy]]<br>[[Francis Bitter]]
| other_names = Ratan Devi
| occupation = Musician
| years_active =
| known_for =
| notable_works =
}}
'''Ratan Devi Coomaraswamy''' (born Alice Ethel Richardson; 1889 – July 15, 1958) worked under the stage name of '''Ratan Devī'''. She recorded Indian music and was a performer of Hindu songs and poems, and went on concert tours in Britain and America. Martin Clayton identifies Alice as one of the significant women overlooked with regard to music in the [[British Empire]].<ref name="ClaytonZon2007"/>

==Biography==
'''Alice Ethel Richardson''' was born in October 1889 in [[Sheffield]], England, to George Richardson and Sarah Faulkner.<ref name=obit/>{{sfn|Crooks|2011|pages=66–67}}

In 1907 Alice visited her friend [[Philip Mairet]], who was part of the same group of artists as art historian [[Ananda Kentish Coomaraswamy]] and his wife, the hand weaver and dyer [[Ethel Mairet|Ethel Coomaraswamy]]. The following year, she began an affair with Ananda. Ethel had not delivered an heir, and her husband wanted a child. He made no secret of his affair and eventually proposed that he should take a second partner. Ethel was aghast at this suggestion and vacated the marital home.{{sfn|Crooks|2011|pages=66–67}}

Alice married Coomaraswamy in 1913 in [[St Pancras, London]].<ref>{{cite book |first1=Margot |last1=Coatts |title=Mairet , Ethel Mary (1872–1952) |work=[[Oxford Dictionary of National Biography]] |location=Oxford |publisher=[[Oxford University Press]] |orig-year=2004 |date=October 2007 |url=http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/39639 |access-date=17 October 2015}} {{subscription}}</ref> They would in time have two children, Narada Coomaraswamy and Rohini Coomaraswamy.<ref name=obit/> Together they went to India and stayed on a houseboat in [[Srinagar]] in Kashmir.<ref name=open/> Coomaraswamy studied [[Rajput painting]] whilst Alice studied Indian music with Abdul Rahim of [[Kapurthala]].<ref name=open/> When they returned to England, Alice performed Indian song under the stage name [[Ratan Devi]].{{sfn|Crooks|2011||page=67}} She was successful and toured around Britain where she would sing after an introductory talk by her husband.<ref name=open/>

In 1913 she published ''Thirty Songs from the Punjab and Kashmir'', which was co-authored with her husband. The book gave the musical notation for thirty songs and included an introduction by [[Bengal]] [[polymath]] [[Rabindranath Tagore]], who was very gracious about Alice's singing.<ref name="ClaytonZon2007">{{cite book |first2=Bennett |last2=Zon |title=Music and orientalism in the British Empire, 1780s to 1940s: portrayal of the East |location=Aldershot, Hampshire, England; Burlington, Vermont |publisher=Ashgate Publishing Ltd.|first1=Martin |last1=Clayton|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3cRlzq6mAzAC&pg=PA82|year=2007|isbn=978-0-7546-5604-3|pages=82–83}}</ref> Apart from the press, she also received good reviews from the composer [[Percy Grainger]], the playwright [[George Bernard Shaw]] and the poet [[W. B. Yeats]].{{sfn|Crooks|2011|page=67}}

In 1916 Alice became pregnant as a result of, according to the occultist and [[Ceremonial magic|magician]] [[Aleister Crowley]], becoming involved in [[sex magic]] rituals.<ref name="CrowleySkinner1996"/> Crowley attempted to use further magic to create a "safe pregnancy";<ref name="CrowleySkinner1996"/> the pregnancy came to end in a miscarriage.<ref name="CrowleySkinner1996">{{cite book|author1=Aleister Crowley|author2=Stephen Skinner|title=Magical Diaries of Aleister Crowley: Tunisia 1923|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=iw4BG8TVzQUC&pg=PA7|year=1996|location=York Beach, Maine|publisher=S. Weiser, Weiser Books|isbn=978-0-87728-856-5|page=7}}</ref> Alice and her husband were both in America in 1917 where under the stage name Ratan Devi she completed a concert tour.<ref name=open>[http://www.open.ac.uk/researchprojects/makingbritain/content/alice-richardson Alice Richardson], Making Britain, [[Open University]], Retrieved 17 October 2015</ref> Whilst they were there, Coomaraswamy was invited to serve as a research fellow on [[Indian art]] in the [[Museum of Fine Arts, Boston|Boston Museum of Fine Arts]] in 1917.<ref name=odnb>{{cite book |first1=G. R. |last1=Seaman |title=Coomaraswamy, Ananda Kentish (1877–1947) |work=Oxford Dictionary of National Biography |location=Oxford |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=2004 |url=http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/55201 |access-date=17 October 2015}} {{subscription}}</ref> According to Crowley, Alice pleaded with him to take her back but he said that he would only do this if she gave up her husband. Alice refused to do this.<ref>{{Cite book|title = Aleister Crowley: Magick, Rock and Roll, and the Wickedest Man in the World|url = https://books.google.com/books?id=dQ1O9wFeNFMC|publisher = Penguin|date = 2014-05-15|isbn = 0698146530|language = en|first = Gary|last = Lachman}}</ref> What is known is that Crowley wrote a story for ''The International'' that included a character named "Haramzada Swami" where Haramzada meant "bastard" in Hindustani.<ref name=times>{{cite news |url=http://www.sundaytimes.lk/100502/Plus/plus_21.html |title=The savant and the occultist |first1=Richard |last1=Boyle |date=2 May 2010 |newspaper=[[The Sunday Times]] plus |access-date=20 October 2015}}</ref>

Coomaraswamy divorced Alice and then he married the American artist [[Stella Bloch]]. Stella traveled to India and returned to the United States trained as an ethnic dancer.<ref name=odnb/>

Alice married [[Francis Bitter]], becoming his first wife on May 31, 1928, in [[Manhattan, New York City]]. Bitter was known for inventing powerful magnets. He worked for [[Westinghouse Electric (1886)|Westinghouse]] and was a professor at [[Caltech]] in [[Pasadena, California]], in 1930 and later at the [[Massachusetts Institute of Technology]].<ref name=obit/>

In 1931 Alice and Ananda's son Narada Coomaraswamy announced that he planned to fly across the Pacific even though he had just 115 hours' flying experience.<ref name=fly>{{cite news|title=Would fly Pacific|url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=2194&dat=19310605&id=GXAvAAAAIBAJ&sjid=A9sFAAAAIBAJ&pg=4969,3556378&hl=en|newspaper=[[The Ottawa Citizen]]|date=6 June 1931|page=14 |access-date=20 October 2015}}</ref>

Alice died of a heart ailment on July 15, 1958, at Phillips House at the [[Massachusetts General Hospital]].<ref name=obit>{{cite news |title=Ratan Devi is Dead. Wife of Francis Bitter of M. I. T. Had Been a Singer |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1958/07/15/archives/ratandevi-is-dead-wife-of-francis-bitter-of-m-i-t-had-been-a-singer.html |newspaper=[[The New York Times]] |date=July 15, 1958 |access-date=2015-06-05 }}</ref>

==Works==
*''Thirty Songs From the Punjab and Kashmir, Recorded by Ratan Devi with Introduction and Translations by Ananda-Kentish Coomarswamy and a Foreword by Rabindranath Tagore'' (London, Old Bourne Press 1913).

==References==
{{reflist}}

==Sources==
*{{cite book |url=http://etheses.whiterose.ac.uk/1985/1/John_Cage's_Entanglement_with_the_Ideas_of_Coomaraswamy,_Ed_Crooks_PhD_thesis.pdf |format=[[PDF]] |title=John Cage’s Entanglement with the Ideas of Coomaraswamy |first1=Edward |last1=Crooks |date=July 2011 |pages=66–67 |publisher=[[York University]] |access-date=20 October 2015}}

==External links==
{{commonscat|Alice Coomaraswamy}}
*[https://www.loc.gov/pictures/search/?q=Coomarasumay Alice Coomaraswamy] at the [[Library of Congress]]

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Coomaraswamy, Alice}}
[[Category:1889 births]]
[[Category:1958 deaths]]
[[Category:English singers]]
[[Category:Musicians from Sheffield]]
[[Category:People from Cambridge, Massachusetts]]
[[Category:British emigrants to the United States]]
[[Category:20th-century English singers]]

Alice Coomaraswamy - Revision history

>Monkbot: Task 18 (cosmetic): eval 9 templates: del empty params (3×); hyphenate params (7×); del |ref=harv (1×);