How Amrita Sher-Gil Transformed Modern Indian Art

Words by Zobia Alam

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This painting was done by Horace Van Ruith in the 1880s as a documentary record of costume and jewellery of the region of Punjab. The woman is wearing her full set of head, ear, nose, neck, arm, hand, ankle and foot jewellery and a costume richly decorated with 'zardozi' (gold wire/thread) embroidery. She lifts her blue gathered skirt with gold-embroidered border to show her silver anklets and toe rings, and at the same time shows the mirror ring on the thumb of her left hand and gold finger rings attached to her bracelets by gold chains. Her shoes are in front of her bare feet. (Available now)

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How Amrita Sher-Gil Transformed Modern Indian Art by Zobia Alam

Amrita Sher-Gil in her studio, 1937

Amidst the diverse tapestry of artistic greatness, there are a select few who set out to fearlessly create a realm that is entirely their own. Amrita Sher-Gil, a pioneer of modern Indian art, once boldly declared, “Europe belongs to Picasso, Matisse, Braque, and many others. India belongs only to me”. With this, she unleashed her creative brilliance in South Asia, and reshaped the very essence of modern Indian art in the 20^th century. Throughout her career, Amrita Sher-Gil embraced individuality and authenticity, paving the way for future generations of South Asian artists to express their identity through art. Through her paintings, she revolutionized Indian art by merging elements from the East and West, portraying the lives of bourgeois South Asian women, and celebrating her own unique identity. Amrita Sher-Gil’s artistic legacy stands as a timeless source of inspiration and admiration across the globe.

Amrita Sher-Gil was born on January 30, 1913 in Budapest, Hungary to Umrao Singh Sher-Gil Majithia, a Sikh aristocrat and Marie Antoinette Gottesmann, a Hungarian opera singer. Her artistic inclinations were influenced  by her unique blend of Indian and European heritage, and her years of education in Italy and France. Amrita Sher-Gil’s fascinating multicultural experiences perhaps, played a role in her ability to break away from societal conventions and transcend the various limitations that are often imposed by particular cultural expectations. In her early years as an artist, Sher-Gil was largely inspired by renowned European artists such as Vincent Van Gogh, Paul Gauguin, and Paul Cézanne. She explored post-Impressionism and several different artistic movements such as Cubism, Fauvism, Surrealism. Amrita Sher-Gil immersed herself in the European public style, exploring femininity and sexuality through her paintings. In 1933, Sher-Gil’s painting “Young Girls” garnered significant acclaim at the Grand Salon in Paris, making her the youngest Asian artist (at only 18 years old) to receive such prestigious recognition.

In a letter to her parents Sher-Gil wrote, “My professor had often said that judging by the richness of my colouring, I was not really in my element in the grey studios of the West and that my artistic personality would find its true atmosphere in the colour and light of the east”. Despite immeasurable success in Europe where she honed her skills and garnered attention, Amrita Sher-Gil felt “haunted by an intense longing to return to India” (as written in her letter to the renowned Indian art critic Karl Khandalavala). She believed that her true fate as an artist lay in the richness of her Indian roots.