Amrita Sher-Gil: A Family Album

I had the pleasure of attending a lecture on one of India’s greatest painters, Amrita Sher-Gil, our very own Frida Kahlo. What’s more, the lecture was presented at the NCPA by the artist’s niece, Navina Sundaram, a television journalist who lives in Germany. The format of the evening comprised a 37 minute film titled Amrita Sher-Gil - A Family Alblum (they repeated the duration several times, so I remembered, reiteration really does work wonders), a presentation by Navina of Amrita’s work and a Q&A.  

I knew bits and pieces about Amrita before attending the lecture but most of it pertained to the sensational bits of her life such as her sexuality and her death. The lecture, however, painted an extremely vivid picture of Amrita’s childhood, her development as an artist and a free-spirited individual and her work.  

Amrita Sher-Gil was born in 1913 in Budapest. She was the unlikely daughter a Sikh landowner and a Hungarian opera singer. She spent much of her early childhood in Hungary before moving to India where her family lived in Shimla. In her late adolescence, she moved to Paris where she enrolled in the École des Beux-Arts to train as a painter. The paintings she produced here reflect the prevailing style taught at the École. Of the paintings she made in Paris, I particularly like this one titled simply ‘Professional Model’ (1933). The droop of the shoulders, the sagging breasts, the tired heads, the embittered face all suggest a spent life so powerfully. Although this painting moves me greatly, there is nothing particularly original about it. It could have been made by any of the multitudes of early 20th century artists whose works hang in galleries and museums across Europe. But it was a painting that she did a year before that won her a gold medal and got her elected as an Associate of the Grand Salon in Paris. The painting titled ‘Young Girls’ (1932) features her sister, Indira (the presenter’s mother) with a friend. Later, Amrita is swayed by Paul Gauguin’s Tahitian women whose influence can be seen in this ‘Self Portrait (1935).  

But, it’s only when Amrita moves back to India, that we see her developing her own unique style. This style is initially influenced by her travels to South India and a stopover at Ajanta. The frescoes she sees in the caves at Ajanta have a significant impact on both the forms and colours in her compositions. ‘Bride’s Toilet’ (1937) seems to be among her more celebrated works and there is a definite Indianness to the painting beyond merely the subjects being native. I assume the trend at this time would have been to underplay native art in favour of movements in Europe because Amrita expresses her astonishment at this; “It always surprises me to hear that those who can recognise the good in Western art are unable to do so as regards to Eastern art. To me it seems incredible. But perhaps this is due to my double atavism.”  
  
In Kerala, Amrita is moved by the beauty and simplicity of the people. She is also inspired by the murals at the Matanchery Palace in Cochin. Kerala inspires her to paint works such as ‘Brahmacharis’ and ‘South Indian Villagers Going to Market’. With the former, Amrita is surprised at the subtle yet patent variations in skin colour she is able to achieve. The latter is my favourite. The stylised, long, dark skinned men contrast against the bright horizontal lines of their pink and green lungis; the shadowy hue of the woman’s face against the fluorescent green of the fish in the basket on her head.  
Amrita was a prolific letter writer and during the presentation that followed the film, Navina quoted directly from Amrita’s letters, adding negligible commentary of her own. These quotes read in sync with the visual give us insight into the artist’s mind at the time she would have painted the work being shown. Beyond this, Amrita proves herself to be an adroit writer with the ability to render emotions to paper lucidly, her words marked concurrently by wit, yearning and sensuality. The synchronised effect of audio and visual - her words and her work - was remarkable and moving.  

However, Amrita’s style is still evolving, changing and reinventing itself. Out of the blue, she gets married to her Hungarian cousin Victor Egan. One can only guess that this is a move to put in place an accommodating consort because she continues to have many affairs with both men and women. The couple move to rural Uttar Pradesh where the Sher-Gils have their sugar mills, the source of their wealth. Victor who has trained in medicine becomes the factory doctor. Amrita’s work becomes influenced by the fauna and the village life of the region as well as Indian miniatures especially the Mughal school. Here, she would paint ‘Red Clay Elephant’ which she would declare as her most cherished painting. I asked Navina which was her favourite of the lot. She replied that ‘Red Clay Elephant’ was her favourite as well. When I asked her why, she mumbled something bland about a transitional phase between earlier influences and the Mughal school. I felt a little disappointed that someone who claims to be so passionate about Amrita’s work could only summon up a few clichéd words of art jargon to demonstrate that passion.  

Ms. Sundaram was articulate, with her careful speech marked by diphthongs and inflections acquired from a slightly dated Received Pronunciation, with only the occasional slip on ‘thirty’ (nineteen thuthy seven). But, she seemed a little cold; maybe the side-effect of all those years amongst Germans or perhaps her guardedness was the result of inappropriate questioning in sessions like these. One man alluded to how much money she would make if she sold the Amrita Sher-Gil paintings she owns. The only one to have been in the market in the recent past was apparently sold for more than Rs.60 million. To her politely vague reply, he quickly retorted something to the effect of “you should give it a thought.” Another one whose many questions were thinly veiled devices to draw attention to herself, suggested that Navina read a novel on art forgeries because it was gripping and informative. Occasionally, she was more jovial, joking about how the fact that she and her brother ‘had no issue’ as having no children is commonly termed India, posed a significant challenge to the Sher-Gil-Sundaram legacy.  

Becoming bored of her life in the boondocks, Amrita moves to Lahore where Victor sets up a medical practice. Here, she suddenly and lamentably dies. I had read somewhere that this was the result of a botched abortion. But, Navina, in response to someone’s question on the subject, said that it was probably dysentery. Although, we can’t imagine any well-off person dying of dysentery today, it was apparently quite plausible since penicillin wasn’t introduced to India until the mid-forties. The death was also perhaps hastened by Victor’s inexperience with tropical diseases. He tried to cure her on his own and by the time he sought help, it was too late. The year was 1941 and Amrita was 28 years old. This unfinished scene of the view from her studio was her last painting.  

Amrita Sher-Gil lived a short life, but what a life it was. She truly embodied the hedonistic expression ‘sensualist of the eyes’ that she was so fond of. She was beautiful, talented, intelligent and irreverent. Merely looking at her photos, which are almost like paintings, is sufficient to leave an impression. Her face shows a detached timelessness. The arch of her eyebrows suggests strength and their droop suggests frailty. Her eyes have such intensity and emotion, they don’t captivate as much as they hypnotise. As I walked out of the NCPA, I was troubled by the thought that one would be hard pressed to find an Amrita Sher-Gil in today’s India. I suppose Amrita, impertinent as always predicted it when she wrote “Europe belongs to Picasso, Matisse and Braque and many others. India belongs only to me.”  

I am looking forward to reading Amrita’s letters in the two volume anthology that her nephew and contemporary artist, Vivan Sundaram, has recently released.  

Amrita Sher-Gil (1910 – 1941)

Disclaimer: I have no expertise in art whatsoever. The thoughts expressed in this post are based on my emotional reactions to Navina Sundaram’s film ‘A Family Album’ and Amrita Sher-Gil’s work.