Amrita Sher-Gil

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Amrita Sher-Gil

Born January 30, 1913(1913-01-30)
Budapest, Hungary
Died December 5, 1941 (aged 28)
Lahore), British India
Nationality Indian
Field painter
Training Grande Chaumiere, École des Beaux-Arts (1930-34)

Amrita Sher-Gil (अमृता शेरगिल) (January 30, 1913 [1], – December 5, 1941), was an eminent Indian painter, sometimes known as India's Frida Kahlo[2], and today considered an important women painter of 20th century India, whose legacy stands at par with that of the Masters of Bengal Renaissance [3][4]; she is also the 'most expensive' woman painter of India [5].

Today, she is amongst Nine Masters, whose work was declared as art treasures by The Archaeological Survey of India, in 1976 and 1979 [6], and over 100 of her paintings are now displayed at National Gallery of Modern Art, New Delhi [7].

Contents

[edit] Early life and education

Amrita Sher-Gil was born in Budapest, Hungary [8] to Umrao Singh Sher-Gil Majithia, a Sikh aristocrat and also a scholar in Sanskrit and Persian, and Marie Antoinette Gottesmann, a Jewish Opera singer from Hungary. Sher-Gil was the elder of two daughters born. Her younger sister was Indira Sundaram (née Sher-Gil), mother of the contemporary artist Vivan Sundaram. She spent most of early childhood in Budapest. She was the niece of Indologist Ervin Baktay.

In 1921 her family moved to Summer Hill, Shimla in India, and soon began learning piano and violin, and by age in nine she along with her younger sister Indira were giving concerts and acting in plays at Shimla's Gaiety Theatre at Mall Road, Shimla [9]. Though she was already painting since the age of five she formally started learning painting at age eight [9].

Amrita with her sister Indira, 1922
Three Girls, 1935, now at the National Gallery of Modern Art in New Delhi

In 1923, Marie came to know an Italian sculptor, who was living at Shimla at the time; later in 1924 when he returned to Italy, Amrita's mother also moved to Italy along with Amrita, and got her enrolled at Santa Anunciata, an Art School at Florence, Italy Though Amrita didn't stay at this school for long, and returned to Indian in 1924, it was here that she was exposed to works of Italian masters [10].

At sixteen, Sher-Gil sailed to Europe with her mother to train as a painter at Paris, first at the Grande Chaumiere under Pierre Vaillant and later at École des Beaux-Arts (1930-34) [11][12], she drew inspiration from European painters such as Paul Cézanne and Paul Gauguin[13], while coming under the influence of her teacher Lucien Simon and the company of artist friends and lovers like Boris Tazlitsky. Her early paintings display a significant influence of the Western modes of painting, especially as being practised in the Bohemian circles of Paris in the early 1930s. In 1932, she made her first important work, Young Girls (see below), which led to her election as an Associate of the Grand Salon in Paris in 1933, making her the youngest ever [14][15] and the only Asian to have received this recognition hence [10].

[edit] Career

By hi 1934, while in Europe she "began to be haunted by an intense longing to return to India,".. "feeling in some strange way that there lay my destiny as a painter", as she later wrote about her return to India. in the same year [16]. Soon she began a rediscovery of the traditions of Indian art which was to continue till her death. She stayed at their family home at Summer Hill, Shimla, for a while, before leaving for travel, in 1936, at the behest of an art collector and critic, Karl Khandalavala, who encouraged her to pursue her passion for discovering her Indian roots [13]; subsequently she was greatly impressed and influenced by the Mughal and Pahari schools of painting and cave paintings at Ajanta Caves.

Amrita Sher-Gil in her studio in Shimla, photographed by father Umrao Singh Sher-Gil, 1937.

Later in 1937, she toured South India [13] and produced the famous South Indian trilogy paintings, Bride's Toilet', 'Brahmacharis' and 'The South Indian Villagers' [17] that reveal her passionate sense of colour and an equally passionate empathy for her Indian subjects, who are often depicted in their poverty and despair, by now the transformation in her work was complete and she had found her 'artistic mission', to express the life of Indian people through her canvas, as she herself admitted [1].

This was distinct from European phase, in the interwar years, when her work showed an engagement with the works of Hungarian painters, especially the Nagybanya school of painting, [18].

Sher-Gil married her Hungarian first cousin, Dr. Victor Egan in 1938, and moved with him to India, to stay at her paternal family's home in Saraya, Gorakhpur, Uttar Pradesh, thus began her second phase in painting, which equals in its impact on Indian Modern Art, with likes of Rabindranath Tagore and Jamini Roy of Bengal school of art, as the 'Calcutta Group' of artists movement, which transformed it later, in a big way, was yet to start in 1943, and the 'Progressive Artist's Group', with Francis Newton Souza, Ara, Bakre, Gade, M. F. Husain and S. H. Raza among its founders, laid further ahead in 1948, Bombay [2][19][20].

In September 1941, the couple moved to Lahore, then in undivided India, and a major cultural and artistic centre. She lived and painted at 23 Ganga Ram Mansions, The Mall, Lahore, where her studio was reported to be on the top floor of the townhouse, she inhabited [21]. She was also famous for her many affairs with both women and men [16].

In 1941, just days before the opening of her first major solo show in Lahore, she became seriously ill and slipped into a coma [16], and later died around midnight [17] on December 6, 1941, leaving behind a large volume of work, and a mystery behind the real reason for death has never been ascertained, something expected in view of the overly sensationalised accounts of Amrita's life in the words of her contemporaries. A failed abortion and subsequent peritonitis also have been suggested as the possible causes [22]. She was cremated on December 7, 1941 at Lahore [23].

Self Portrait, 1935

[edit] Legacy

The Government of India has declared her works as National Art Treasures [2], and most of them are housed in the National Gallery of Modern Art in New Delhi [24], and a postage stamp depicting her painting 'Hill Women' was released in 1978 in India[25], and a road in Lutyens' Delhi, was named after her, Amrita Shergill Marg.

Besides remaining an inspiration to many a contemporary Indian artists, in 1993, she also became the inspiration behind, the famous Urdu play, by Javed Siddiqi, 'Tumhari Amrita', starring Shabana Azmi and Farooq Shaikh [26].

[edit] Further reading

A Amrita Sher-Gil painting on the cover of India Today. The painting was sold in 2006 for US $1.5 million.[27]
  • The Art of Amrita Sher-Gil, Series of the Roerich Centre of Art and Culture. Allahabad Block Works, 1943.
  • Sher-Gil, by Amrita Sher-Gil, Lalit Kala Akademi, 1965.
  • India’s 50 Most Illustrious Women by Indra Gupta (ISBN 81-88086-19-3)
  • Famous Indians of the 20th Century by Vishwamitra Sharma. Pustak Mahal, 2003, ISBN 8122308295.

[edit] Gallery

Young Girls, 1932, Amrita’s sister Indira sits on the left clothed in chic European garb, while the partially undressed figure in the foreground is a French friend, Denise Proutaux. This painting was awarded a Gold Medal at the Grand Salon in 1933 [14]

Camels, 1935.

Hill Women, 1935.

Hungarian Market Scene, 1938

Tribal Women, 1938

Two Elephants, ca 1940.

Self Portrait, 1935

Bride's Toilet, 1937]]

[edit] References

  1. ^ a b Great Minds, The Tribune, March 12, 2000
  2. ^ a b c Amrita Sher-Gill at mapsofindia.com
  3. ^ First Lady of the Modern Canvas Indian Express, October 17, 1999.
  4. ^ Women painters at 21stcenturyindianart.com
  5. ^ Most expensive Indian artists
  6. ^ Nine Masters Government Museum and Art Gallery, Chandigarh Official website.
  7. ^ Showcase:Amrita Sher-Gil National Gallery of Modern Art.
  8. ^ The house Amrita Shergil was born in
  9. ^ a b Amrita Shergill at sikh-heritage
  10. ^ a b Amrita Shergill Biography at iloveindia.com
  11. ^ Archives 'Amrita Shergil' project www.hausderkunst.de.
  12. ^ Amrita Sher-Gil profile at indianartcircle.com
  13. ^ a b c Amrita Sher-Gil Exhibition at tate.org
  14. ^ a b Works in Focus Tate Modern, 2007.
  15. ^ Amrita Shergil at tate
  16. ^ a b c Laid bare - the free spirit of Indian art The Daily Telegraph, February 24, 2007.
  17. ^ a b Amrita Shergill at indiaprofile.com
  18. ^ Daily Times, December 15, 2004
  19. ^ Contemporary Art Movemnets in India www.contemporaryart-india.com.
  20. ^ Indian artists
  21. ^ Amrita Shergil at indianetzone.com
  22. ^ Truth, Love and a Little Malice, An Autobiography by Khushwant Singh Penguin, 2003. ISBN 0143029576.
  23. ^ Hamari Amrita, March 2007 Khushwant Singh's Article on Amrita Shergill
  24. ^ Amrita Sher-Gil at culturalindia.net
  25. ^ Art on Indian Postage Stamps
  26. ^ The Hindu, Aug 13, 2006
  27. ^ The Art Trust. "Indian Most Expensive Paintings". http://www.theartstrust.com/big_investment_image.aspx. 

[edit] External links

[edit] Biography

[edit] Paintings

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