|
|
Amrita Sher-Gil
|
|
|
Born on 30th January 1913 in Budapest, Hungary, Amrita Sher-Gil was the first important woman artist to emerge out of India in the 1930s. In her brief life span of 28 years, she led the modern Indian art movement, which was then taken ahead by the Bombay Progressive Artists Group.
A child of a Punjabi landlord father Sardar Umrao Singh Majithia and a Hungarian musician mother, Antoinette, both loyalists to the British Raj, Amrita had...
Read More
Born on 30th January 1913 in Budapest, Hungary, Amrita Sher-Gil was the first important woman artist to emerge out of India in the 1930s. In her brief life span of 28 years, she led the modern Indian art movement, which was then taken ahead by the Bombay Progressive Artists Group.
A child of a Punjabi landlord father Sardar Umrao Singh Majithia and a Hungarian musician mother, Antoinette, both loyalists to the British Raj, Amrita had to struggle with the biases that her mixed parentage, her middle class background and her gender raised throughout her brief artistic career.
Sher-Gil received her early art training in Florence. Expelled from the art school a year later for drawing women in the nude, she moved with her family to Paris, where she worked under Pierre Vaillant and then Professor Lucien Simon at Ecole Nationale des Beaux Arts. She studied there for three years and her painting; Young Girls was awarded the Picture of the Year, making her the youngest person ever to receive this honor. Sher-Gil was also made Associate of the Grand Salon, the first Indian to achieve this distinction. Her earlier works are heavily influenced by the European style of painting, especially by the post-Impressionists.
Yet by the 30s, Sher-Gil was convinced of the need to come back to India to her roots. She returned home in 1934. She once said, "As soon as I put my foot on Indian soil my painting underwent a change not only in subject and spirit, but also in technical expression. It became more fundamentally Indian." In her search for the quintessential 'Indian' style of painting, she came across the Santiniketan School of painting, pioneered by Abanindranath Tagore. She however dismissed their work as being too 'effeminate and sentimental'. She developed her own style that was a mix of the western and oriental art styles, with the themes being predominantly women oriented and feminist. "I realized my artistic mission was not only to paint but to interpret the life of Indians and particularly that of the poor Indians, pictorially, to paint the silent images of infinite submission and patience, to depict the angular brown bodies, strangely beautiful in their ugliness, to reproduce on canvas the impression their sad eyes created on me," she said.
Sher-Gil's women, often drawn in their own private spaces, were not necessarily beautiful ladies from affluent families. Rather, they came from rural communities and villages, from the middle, and lower middle class families. She is considered the single biggest role model for post-independence women artists, in search of their own roots and identity.
Landscape, ‘Sher-Gil's first work after she returned to India, depicts a view of the fields from her ancestral home in Amritsar. It is a rare landscape by the artist who mostly worked with figurative images. Her chosen medium of painting was oil, and her style was reminiscent of the post-impressionists artists. She picked up structural elements from the miniature and mural traditions of Indian art. Sher Gill often painted rustic villagers, whom she first interacted with during her stay in Shimla.
Her most prolific period happened to be between 1935 and 1939, when she made some of her famous paintings including Siesta, The Story Teller, Ganesh Puja, Hillside and Hill Scene. Her most celebrated paintings are those depicting women in their private worlds such as 1938 trilogy, The Bride's Toilet, Brahmacharis and Villagers going to Market.
Referred to by author Salman Rushdie as the "greatest woman painter", her paintings are considered a national heritage. Tragically, her painting career only spans nine years. Amrita Sher-Gil died in 1941 at the age of 28 in Lahore.
Read Less
Born
January 30, 1913
Budapest Hungary
Died
December 5, 1941
Education
1929 The Academie de la Grande Chaumiere, Paris(Tutee of P.Vaillant)
1929 Ecole Nationale des Beaux-Arts(Tutee of Luican Simon)
1924 School of Santa Annunciata, Florence
Exhibitions
Selected Posthumous Exhibitions
2022 'Kahlo, Sher-Gil, Stern:...
Selected Posthumous Exhibitions
2022 'Kahlo, Sher-Gil, Stern: Modernist Identities in the Global South', Joburg Contemporary Art Foundation, Johannesburg
2014 'Amrita Sher-Gil and Lionel Wendt', Jhaveri Contemporary, Mumbai
2014 'Amrita Sher-Gil: The Passionate Quest', presented by National Gallery of Modern Art (NGMA), New Delhi and Ministry of Culture, Government of India at National Gallery of Modern Art (NGMA), New Delhi
2013 'Amrita Sher-Gil: Birth Centenary Celebration', presented by National Gallery of Modern Art (NGMA), New Delhi and Ministry of Culture, Government of India at National Gallery of Modern Art (NGMA), New Delhi
2013 Celebrated as the Birth Centenary Year of Amrita Sher-Gil. UNESCO Hungary declared 2013 as the International Year of Sher-Gil
2013 ‘The Self in Making’, Kiran Nadar Museum of Art (KNMA), New Delhi
2013 'Companionable Silences', Palais de Tokyo, Paris
2013 Exhibition of Amrita Sher-Gil and Hungary at the Vaszary Villa, Balatonfured, Hungary
2011 'Ethos V: Indian Art Through the Lens of History (1900 to 1980), Indigo Blue Art, Singapore
2010-11 'A Collection', Sakshi Gallery, Mumbai
2009 'Kalpana: Figurative Art in India', presented by The Indian Council for Cultural Relations (ICCR) at Aicon Gallery, London; The Indian Council for Cultural Relations (ICCR)
2008-09 'Modern India', organized by Institut Valencià d'Art Modern (IVAM) and Casa Asia, in collaboration with the Ministry of Culture at Valencia, Spain
2007 'Amrita Sher-Gil', Tate Modern, London organised in collaboration with the Haus der Kunst, Munich; the National Gallery of Modern Art (NGMA), New Delhi and the Ministry of Culture, Government of India, New Delhi
2006-07 'Amrita Sher-Gil: An Indian Artist Family in the 20th Century', Haus der Kunst, Munich in collaboration with National Gallery of Modern Art, New Delhi, Ministry of Culture, Government of India, New Delhi, and Goethe-Institut, New Delhi
2004 ‘Amrita Sher-Gil: Icon – Works & Memorabilia from Her Last Years’, Chatterjee & Lal, Mumbai
2004 'Rabindranath Tagore, Amrita Sher-Gil, Jamini Roy’, Vadehra Art Gallery, New Delhi
2002 ‘Amrita Sher-Gil’, Institut Hongrois de Paris
2001 ‘Amrita Sher-Gil: The Indian painter and Her French and Hungarian Connections’, Ernst Museum, Budapest
1998 ‘Raja Ravi Varma, Amrita Sher-Gil Restored’, held in New Delhi by Indian National Trust and Cultural Heritage and National Gallery of Modern Art (NGMA)
1985 ‘Artistes Indiens en France’, Ministere de la Culture, Centre National des Arts Plastiques, Paris
1982 ‘Six Indian Painters’, Tate Britain, London
1941 The Punjab Literary League Hall, Lahore
Selected Exhibitions
1937 Faletti’s Hotel, Lahore
1937 Allahabad University, Allahabad
1937 Imperial Hotel, New Delhi
1936 Hyderabad
1936 Taj Mahal Hotel, Mumbai
1935 Allahabad
1935 New Delhi
1933 Salon De Tuilleries, Paris
1933 Grand Salon, Paris
1932 Grand Salon, Paris
1930 Theatre Pigalle, Paris
Participations
1937 Annual Exhibition, Bombay Art Society, Mumbai
1935 Annual Exhibition, Simla Fine Arts Society
Honours and Awards
1999-2001 A television documentary titled Amrita Sher-Gil (Duration: 53...
1999-2001 A television documentary titled Amrita Sher-Gil (Duration: 53 minutes) made by renowned Hungarian Cinematographer and Film-maker Sandor Sara, based on the life of the artist; subsequently-part I (Duration: 52 minutes), part II (Duration: 51 minutes), part III (Duration: 51 minutes) were made.
1978 Indian Postal Service releases a postage stamp depiciting Sher-Gil's painting Hill Women
1976 Declared a ‘National Art Treasure’ artist by the Archaeological Survey of India, Government of India
1968-69 Films Divison of India produces a documentary film Amrita Sher-Gil, based on the life and works of Amrita Sher-Gil (Director: B.D.Garga; Duration: 19 minutes)
1940 Bombay Art Society Award, Mumbai
1937 Gold Medal, 46th Annual Exhibition, Bombay Art Society, Mumbai
1935 Simla Fine Arts Society Fine Arts Prize (rejected)
1933 Gold Medal, Grand Salon, Paris
1933 Elected Associate of the Grand Salon, Paris
Read More Read Less
|
|
|
|
|
PAST AUCTIONS
Showing
4
of
49
works
Lot 32
Details
Evening Sale
14 September 2024
Untitled
Watercolour and pencil on paper
7.5 x 11 in
Winning bid
$28,916
Rs 24,00,000
(Inclusive of buyer's premium)
|
Lot 33
Details
Evening Sale
14 September 2024
Untitled
Watercolour and pencil on paper
11 x 8.5 in
Winning bid
$60,723
Rs 50,40,000
(Inclusive of buyer's premium)
|
Lot 34
Details
Evening Sale
14 September 2024
a) Untitled
Charcoal on paper pasted...
Winning bid
$159,036
Rs 1,32,00,000
(Inclusive of buyer's premium)
|
|
See all works in past auctions
PAST StoryLTD AUCTIONS
Showing
1
of
1
works
Lot 1
Details
FIAE Fundraiser Auction
10 November 2020
Untitled
Charcoal on paper
13 x 9.5 in
Winning bid
$28,026
Rs 20,31,875
(Inclusive of buyer's premium)
| | | |
Need help? For more information on Indian Art, please see our Art Guide. For help
with buying through Saffronart please click here. If you have any other questions, please contact us.
|