- Amrita Sher-Gil
Infobox_Celebrity
name = Amrita Sher-Gil
.jpg)
image_size= 200px
caption = (1913-1941)
birth_date = birth date |1913|1|30
birth_place =Budapest ,Hungary
birth_name=
death_date = death date and age|1941|12|5|1913|1|30|mf=y
death_place =Lahore ),British India
occupation = painter
salary =
networth =
imdb_id =
website =Amrita Sher-Gil (अमृता शेरगिल) (
January 30 ,1913 [http://www.tribuneindia.com/2000/20000312/spectrum/main2.htm#3 Great Minds, The Tribune, March 12, 2000] ] , –December 5 ,1941 ), was an eminentIndia n painter, sometimes known as India'sFrida Kahlo [http://www.mapsofindia.com/who-is-who/art-culture/amrita-sher-gill.html Amrita Sher-Gill at mapsofindia.com] ] , and today considered an important women painter of 21st century India, whose legacy stands at par with that of the Masters ofBengal Renaissance [ [http://www.indianexpress.com/res/web/pIe/ie/daily/19991017/iex17018.html First Lady of the Modern Canvas]Indian Express ,October 17 ,1999 .] [http://www.21stcenturyindianart.com/women.htm Women painters at 21stcenturyindianart.com] ] ; she is also the 'most expensive' woman painter of India [ [http://us.rediff.com/money/2007/dec/29art.htm Most expensive Indian artists] ] . Today, she is amongst "Nine Masters", whose work was declared as "art treasures" by TheArchaeological Survey of India , in 1976 and 1979 [ [http://chdmuseum.nic.in/art_gallery/nine_masters.html Nine Masters]Government Museum and Art Gallery, Chandigarh Ofdicial website.]She was daughter of Umrao Singh Sher-Gil Majithia, a
Sikh aristocrat and also a scholar inSanskrit and Persian, and Marie Antoinette Gottesmann, a Jewish Opera singer fromHungary . Sher-Gil was the elder of two daughters born to Umrao Singh and Marie Antoinette. Her younger sister was Indira Sundaram (née Sher-Gil), mother of the contemporary artistVivan Sundaram .Biography
Early life and education
Amrita Sher-Gil was born on
January 30 ,1913 , inBudapest ,Hungary [ [http://www.chaurichaura.com/Sardar.htm The house Amrita Shergil was born in] ] , where she spent most of early childhood. In 1921 her family moved toSummer 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 atMall Road, Shimla [http://www.sikh-heritage.co.uk/arts/amritashergil/amritashergill.html Amrita Shergill at sikh-heritage] ] . Though she was already painting since the age of five she formally started learning painting at age eight ..
In 1923, Marie came to known an Italian sculpture, 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 [http://www.iloveindia.com/indian-heroes/amrita-shergill.html Amrita Shergill Biography at iloveindia.com] ] .
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 atÉcole des Beaux-Arts (1930-34) [ [http://www.hausderkunst.de/hdk.de/index.php?StoryID=2613 Archives 'Amrita Shergil' project] www.hausderkunst.de.] [ [http://www.indianartcircle.com/arteducation/amrita.shtml Amrita Sher-Gil profile at indianartcircle.com] ] , she drew inspiration from European painters such asPaul Cézanne andPaul Gauguin , while coming under the influence of her teacherLucien Simon and the company of artist friends and lovers likeBoris 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 [ [http://en.ce.cn/entertainment/theater/200703/08/t20070308_10626933.shtml Amrita Shergil at tate] ] and the only Asian to have received this recognition hence .Return to India
By 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 . 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 [http://www.tate.org.uk/modern/exhibitions/shergil/default.shtm Amrita Sher-Gil Exhibition at tate.org] ] ; subsequently she was greatly impressed and influenced by the Mughal and Pahari schools of painting and cave paintings atAjanta Caves .Later in 1937, she toured South India and produced the famous South Indian trilogy paintings, Bride's Toilet', 'Brahmacharis' and 'The South Indian Villagers' [http://www.indiaprofile.com/people/amritashergill.htm Amrita Shergill at indiaprofile.com] ] 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 .
This was distinct from European phase, in the interwar years, when her work showed an engagement with the works of
Hungarian painters , especially theNagybanya school of painting, [ [http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=story_15-12-2004_pg3_5 Daily Times, December 15, 2004] ] .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 ofRabindranath Tagore andJamini Roy ofBengal 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', withFrancis Newton Souza , Ara, Bakre, Gade,M. F. Husain andS. H. Raza among its founders, laid further ahead in 1948, Bombay [ [http://www.contemporaryart-india.com/art%20_movements_in_india.php Contemporary Art Movemnets in India] www.contemporaryart-india.com.] [ [http://www.art.in/indian-artists.htm Indian artists] ] .In September 1941, the couple moved to
Lahore , then inundivided 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 [http://www.indianetzone.com/9/amrita_shergil.htm Amrita Shergil at indianetzone.com] ] . She was also famous for her many affairs with both women and men .In 1941, just days before the opening of her first major solo show in Lahore, she became seriously ill and slipped into a coma [http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml?xml=/arts/2007/02/24/baamrita124.xml Laid bare - the free spirit of Indian art]
The Daily Telegraph ,February 24 ,2007 .] , and later died around midnight on December 6th, 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 [Truth, Love and a Little Malice, An Autobiography byKhushwant Singh Penguin, 2003. ISBN 0143029576.] . She was cremated on December 7, 1941 at Lahore [http://brandbombay.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!C2456EC670FCDC00!422.entry Hamari Amrita, March 2007]Khushwant Singh 's Article on Amrita Shergill] .Legacy
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