Krishna Riboud Biography 
Krishna Riboud was a historian and art collector from Bengal. As an art collector she was most interested in in Indian and Chinese antiquities and textiles. She was married to Jean Riboud, a French socialist, corporate executive and the chairman of Schlumberger and a recipient of Padma Bhushan too. Krishna is related to the famous intellectual Tagore family of Bengal. Her mother was a grandniece of Rabindranath Tagore.
Her maiden name is Krishna Roy. She was born on 12 October 1926 in Dhaka in British India, now a part of Bangladesh. Her father Rajendra Roy was a director of public health in East Bengal. Her mother Ena Tagore Roy was a grandniece of Rabindranath Tagore. Krishna lost her father at the age of 10. Later she was raised by her maternal uncle Soumendranath Tagore, a revolutionary leader from Tagore family, in Kolkata who greatly influenced Krishna’s life later. With her mother's permission, Krishna Roy left for Wellesley College in 1943. She met Jean Riboud, her future husband in a party given by French photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson in 1947. After a few meetings and travels together they decided to tie knot in 1949.
Her mother wanted her to marry an Indian. Riboud’s mother wanted his son to marry a catholic. Roy and Riboud married on 1 October 1949 at the Kelloggs' house in Connecticut. Their single son was born in 1950 in New York. The couple had an extensive friendship circle which included political and art figures from India and abroad. Jean Riboud died in Paris in 1986 and their only son died in a car accident in Switzerland in 1990. Krishna Riboud died at Paris in 2000. Between 1990 and 2000, her last ten years of life, she divided her time between France and India. She was a member of the jury of the 1958 Cannes Film Festival. As an art collector, she started off with saris in 1950s, after her marriage.
Published: February 03, 2019
Updated: February 03, 2019
