Amrita Sher-Gil
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Amrita Sher-Gil
(b Budapest, 30 Jan 1913; d Lahore, 5 Dec 1941). Indian painter of Hungarian birth. She lived in Hungary with her Sikh father and Hungarian mother until 1919, when they moved to Simla in the Himalayan foothills. Between 1929 and 1934 she studied under Lucien Simon at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris, and she received a gold medal at the Grand Salon in 1933. During this time she spent her summers in Hungary, painting in the countryside. Both in Paris and in Hungary, she affiliated herself to post-Impressionist concerns, developing these in the context of an inter-war realism. In 1934 she returned to India in a conscious bid to regain her identity, producing a series of sombre paintings of the Indian hill-people in 1935 and touring ancient sites in 1936. She was acclaimed for the works she exhibited during this trip. In 1937 she adapted the mannered contour of Ajanta paintings and made a suite with formal, majestically composed scenes of ritual life, for example Brahmacharis (1937; New Delhi, N.G. Mod. A.).
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Amrita Sher-Gil
| Amrita | |
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| Born | January 30, 1913 Budapest, Hungary |
| Died | December 5, 1941 (aged 28) Lahore, present day Pakistan |
| Nationality | Indian |
| Field | painter |
| Training | Grande Chaumiere École des Beaux-Arts (1930-34) |
Amrita Sher-Gil (Punjabi: ਅੰਿਮ੍ਤਾ ਸ਼ੇਰਗਿਲ) (अमृता शेरगिल) (January 30, 1913,[1] – December 5, 1941), was an eminent Indian painter born to a Punjabi Sikh father and a Hungarian mother, sometimes known as India's Frida Kahlo,[2] and today considered an important woman 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]
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Early life and education
Amrita Sher-Gil was born in Budapest, Hungary[6] 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. Her mother came to India as a companion of Princess Bamba Sutherland.[7] 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. He guided her by critiquing her work and gave her an academic foundation to grow on. He also instructed her to use servants as models. The memories of these models would eventually lead to her return to India.[8]
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]
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 Annunziata, an Art School at Florence, Italy Though Amrita didn't stay at this school for long, and returned to India 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]
Career
In 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. It was also during this period that she pursued an affair with Malcolm Muggeridge.[17] She stayed at their family home at Summer Hill, Shimla, f or 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.
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'[18] 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.[19]
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][20][21]
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. She was also famous for her many affairs with both men and women.[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[18] on December 6, 1941, leaving behind a large volume of work, and a mystery behind the real reason for her 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]
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 (1992), starring Shabana Azmi and Farooq Shaikh.[26]
Her work is a key theme in the contemporary Indian novel "Faking It" by Amrita Chowdhury
Further reading
- Amrita Sher-Gil, by Karl J. Khandalavala. New Book Co., 1945
- Amrita Sher-Gil: Essays, by Vivan Sundaram, Marg Publications; New Delhi, 1972.
- Amrita Sher-Gil, by Baldoon Dhingra. Lalit Kala Akademi, New Delhi, 1981. ISBN 0-86186-644-4.
- Amrita Sher-Gil and Hungary, by Gyula Wojtilla . Allied Publishers, 1981.
- Amrita Sher-Gill: A Biography by N. Iqbal Singh, Vikas Publishing House Pvt.Ltd., India, 1984. ISBN 0-7069-2474-6
- Amrita Sher-Gil: A personal view, by Ahmad Salim. Istaarah Publications; 1987.
- Amrita Sher-Gil, by Mulk Raj Anand. National Gallery of Modern Art; 1989.
- Amrita Shergil: Amrita Shergil ka Jivan aur Rachana samsar, by Kanhaiyalal Nandan. 2000.
- Re-take of Amrita, by Vivan Sundaram. 2001, Tulika. ISBN 81-85229-49-X
- Amrita Sher Gill - A Painted Life by Geeta Doctor, Rupa 2002, ISBN 81-7167-688-X
- Amrita Sher-Gil: A Life by Yashodhara Dalmia, 2006. ISBN 0-670-05873-4
- Amrita Sher-Gil: An Indian Artist Family of the Twentieth Century, by Vivan Sundaram, 2007, Schirmer/Mosel. ISBN 3-8296-0270-7
- 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 81-223-0829-5
Gallery
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Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Amrita Sher-Gil |
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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]
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Camels, 1935.
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Hill Women, 1935.
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Hungarian Market Scene, 1938
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Tribal Women, 1938
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Two Elephants, ca 1940.
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Bride's Toilet, 1937
References
- ^ a b Great Minds, The Tribune, March 12, 2000
- ^ a b c Amrita Sher-Gill at mapsofindia.com
- ^ First Lady of the Modern Canvas Indian Express, October 17, 1999.
- ^ Women painters at 21stcenturyindianart.com
- ^ Most expensive Indian artists
- ^ The house Amrita Shergil was born in
- ^ Kang, Kanwarjit Singh (20 September 2009). "The Princess who died unknown". The Sunday Tribune. http://www.tribuneindia.com/2009/20090920/spectrum/main3.htm. Retrieved 13 March 2010.
- ^ On Amrita Sher-Gil: Claiming a Radiant Legacy By Nilima Sheikh
- ^ a b Amrita Shergill at sikh-heritage
- ^ a b Amrita Shergill Biography at iloveindia.com
- ^ Archives 'Amrita Shergil' project www.hausderkunst.de.
- ^ Amrita Sher-Gil profile at indianartcircle.com
- ^ a b c Amrita Sher-Gil Exhibition at tate.org
- ^ a b Works in Focus, Tate Modern, 2007.
- ^ Amrita Shergil at tate
- ^ a b c Laid bare - the free spirit of Indian art The Daily Telegraph, February 24, 2007.
- ^ Bright-Holmes, John (1981). Like It Was: The Diaries of Malcolm Muggeridge. entry dated 18 January 1951: Collins. pp. p. 426. ISBN 978-0-688-00784-3. http://www.meteorbooks.com/chap3.html.
- ^ a b Amrita Shergill at indiaprofile.com
- ^ Daily Times, December 15, 2004
- ^ Contemporary Art Movemnets in India
- ^ Indian artists
- ^ Truth, Love and a Little Malice, An Autobiography by Khushwant Singh Penguin, 2003. ISBN 0-14-302957-6.
- ^ Hamari Amrita, March 2007 Khushwant Singh's Article on Amrita Shergill
- ^ Amrita Sher-Gil at culturalindia.net
- ^ Art on Indian Postage Stamps
- ^ Digital encounters The Hindu, August 13, 2006]
External links
Biography
- Amrita Sher-Gil biography, articles and work.
- Amrita-it.com - A Resource site on Amrita Sher-Gil
- Amrita Sher-Gil Bio, Photos and Paintings
- Biography of Artist Amrita Sher-Gil and Photos
Paintings
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