Amrita Sher-Gil
Amrita Sher-Gil (born January 30, 1913 in Budapest , Austria-Hungary , † December 5, 1941 in Lahore , British India ) was an Indian - Hungarian artist. She is considered a pioneer of modern Indian art .
Life
Childhood in Hungary and India
Sher-Gil's family background was unusual, artistic, and cosmopolitan-intellectual. Her mother, Marie Antoinette Gottesmann, was Hungarian and had an upper-class Jewish background. Her father Umrao Singh Sher-Gil (1870-1954) was a private scholar and came from an aristocratic family in the Punjab . He was a philosopher, artist and photographer. Sher-Gil learned to play the piano in Hungary and even gave concerts; she had an aversion to Chopin , but adored Beethoven . Her sister Indira was also musically gifted. The family members served as mutual sources of inspiration and there was a strong sense of solidarity. Amrita Sher-Gil then began taking art classes at the age of eight when her family moved to Shimla at the foot of the Himalayas , which at the time was the summer residence of the British colonial administration. A stay of several months in Florence followed , which was intended to develop the daughters' understanding of the Italian Renaissance .
Parisian years
Education
Sher-Gil's parents soon recognized their talent for painting. At the age of 16, the entire family moved to Paris in 1929 to enable her to study art. Here she continued her art studies, initially at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière and later at the École des Beaux-Arts . The latter was considered the most important art academy in the world at the time. Mother Marie held legendary soirees in Paris ; his father, who was considered eccentric, read at the Sorbonne .
Early successes
Sher-Gil enjoyed early successes in Paris. Her style at that time was by no means radical, but combined influences from many currents of that time. “I have painted some very good paintings,” she wrote in a letter to her mother in October 1931 when she was 18. “Everyone says I've improved tremendously; even the person whose criticism I think is most important to me - myself. ”Between 1930 and 1932, around sixty large paintings were created. Like many others at the time, she rejected the abstract avant-garde and took rather reliable figures in art history as models, in her case Cézanne , Gauguin and Modigliani . In her Paris phase, her work tends towards an academic realism that can sometimes be compared with the early Picasso and yet is headstrong. In this phase portraits, still lifes and nudes dominate.
Many of her paintings show an open approach to physicality. Her painting “Young Girls” (1932) received a gold medal in 1933 at the Paris Salon , a renowned art exhibition. It shows her sister Indira, who wears European clothes and has a trusting look, as she sits with a half-undressed friend, Denise Proutaux, whose face is covered by her hair; one woman brave and daring and another reserved and hidden. The painting reflects the various aspects of Sher-Gil's personality: she was considered sociable at Parisian parties; on the other hand, she hid and painted with passion. Amrita and her sister Indira were photogenic young women who could hardly save themselves from admirers in Paris. Photos from that time show Sher-Gil surrounded by men in cafes - their self-confidence bordered on arrogance. She once said: "I will enjoy my beauty because it is only given to me for a short time and the enjoyment never lasts long." But Sher-Gil was also considered proud, arrogant and stubborn and demanded exorbitant prices for her paintings.
At the age of 20 she submitted the very revealing picture “Sleep” (1933) for the annual competition of the École des Beaux Arts and won first prize. Her sister Indira, who is a year younger than her, is shown here, a budding pianist: The naked body of the person depicted in sleep unfolds like a blossom; the white sheet frames the soft brown tones of her skin, the light bosom, the even lighter inside of the upper arm, her rosy cheeks and the red mouth; the movements of her lush black curls are continued in the Chinese dragon on the pink silk scarf next to her, which hugs her side like a trusting lap dog.
Openness and conflicts with sexuality
In addition to paintings of relatives, loved ones and friends, she also created self-portraits that show her struggle with her own identity. Her self-portraits often reflected a restless woman, turned inside herself, caught between her Hungarian and Indian identities. Her self-portrait as a Tahitian woman (1934; oil on canvas; 90 × 56 cm) is reminiscent of the style of the French late impressionist Paul Gauguin , who often painted dark-skinned Tahitian women. The painting was completed a year after completing her studies at the École des Beaux-Arts. Her own brown body is painted in Gauguin's style of the female nude, with a simple ponytail and a distant, gloomy expression on her face. The self-portrait thus expresses her physicality, which it repeatedly cites in it. But on closer inspection, Gauguin's view of the “exotic sexuality” of the South Seas is relocated in that the artist overcomes the white colonial view. Because Sher-Gil not only takes on the role of the innocent muse in the painting, as was the case with Gauguin, but rather she is both subject and object at the same time. The painting underlines her cosmopolitanism as one of her most outstanding self-portraits.
But Sher-Gil also had conflicts with her sexuality. Her early work often dealt with sexual identity, which is why she is often compared to Frida Kahlo . For example, she was attracted to the idea of a same-sex affair, also because of her view of women as a strong individual freed from conventions. She was closely associated with the painter Marie Louise Chassany , and some art critics - including her nephew, the artist Vivan Sundaram , who also wrote a biography of her - believed that in her work "Two Women" they recognized the mutual desire of the two. Overall, Sher-Gil was very open about her sexuality and her affection for both men and women, as can be seen from many letters to her parents and sister. Her mother once asked her about the nature of her relationship with Chassany. In a letter to her mother in 1934, Sher-Gil denied an intimate relationship with her. Although she cited the disadvantages of relationships with men, she said of Chassany that they were never sexually involved and that she believed she would start a relationship with a woman as soon as the opportunity arose. Indeed, she had relationships with men and viewed marriage as a way of gaining independence from her parents.
The young socialist Boris Taslitzky, who knew Sher-Gil from college, fell in love with her, but her mother rejected him; instead, they got their parents to become engaged to Yusuf Ali Khan, who is considered a bon vivant. Sher-Gil broke this connection due to Yusuf's infidelity before the wedding - he had infected her with syphilis . She was treated by her cousin, the Hungarian doctor Victor Egan, whom she married in 1938. Only afterwards did she reveal that she was pregnant. He arranged for an abortion.
Return to India
Shimla
Although she found recognition for her work, Sher-Gil felt unfulfilled in Paris. She wrote that she was haunted by a strong longing to return to India and felt in a strangely inexplicable way that her fate as a painter was located there: “A fresco in Ajanta is worth more than the entire Renaissance.” The father noted against a return of the now emancipated Bohémienne , as he feared for the reputation of the family. But she returned to Shimla with her family in the winter of 1934. Here she found the inspiration she needed as she traveled through the country and reconnected with its residents.
Although her family had close ties to the British Raj (British rule over India), they sympathized with the Indian National Congress , which campaigned for the rights of the Indian majority population who wanted independence from the United Kingdom . In India, she worked late into the night, but could also be found in the homes of wealthy politicians and bureaucrats as a sophisticatedly dressed beauty. During this time, she is said to have had affairs with the future Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and the British journalist Malcolm Muggeridge .
Development of an independent style
She described her technical style as fundamentally Indian during this time. She wrote: "At that time I recognized my artistic mission: to interpret the life of the Indians and especially the poor Indians figuratively, to paint these silent pictures of infinite submission and patience to depict their angular brown bodies." At first she let herself be transfigured by the romantic Guide the gaze of a European woman, but in the course of the 1930s she turned more and more to the real people of India. During her later years on her family estate in Northern India and an extensive visit to Hungary (1938–1939), Sher-Gil painted in exuberant tones intimate scenes of rural domestic life, mountain landscapes, local ceremonies and animals, which both from Brueghel's scenes of peasant life as also inspired by miniature painting of the Mughal Empire and the Pahari tradition, complemented by the impressions she gained from visiting historical monuments, including the Ajanta and Ellora caves .
It was only during her Indian phase that Sher-Gil developed a truly independent style, characterized by a more extensive and only occasionally folkloric painting. Rather, she avoided passion and paid particular attention to the balance and tension of her composition. Her style can therefore be described as unobtrusive, whereby the view of the life around her is noticeably melancholy. Using her brush, Sher-Gil examined the sadness felt by people, especially women, in India in the 1930s, giving voice and meaning to their experiences. With her style and emphasis on women, Amrita Sher-Gil became known as the "Indian Frida Kahlo ". She has depicted the daily life of Indian women in the 1930s with her brush, often revealing a feeling of loneliness and even hopelessness. She painted women on the way to the market, women at a wedding, women at home. Sometimes she showed women along with other women. At times the work seemed to convey a sense of quiet determination. It was a rare depiction of Indian women at the time who were otherwise portrayed as happy and obedient. The melancholy painting “Three Girls” shows, for example, women with passive expressions whose serious brown faces contrast with the bright red, green and amber colors of their clothes. The mood is discouraged, as if the women are waiting for something but doubt that it will ever come. She understood the loneliness of her characters well; their moods found an image in them. Due to her upbringing, she lived between worlds and often looked for a sense of belonging.
Her painting “Dorfszene”, created in 1938 from this time, was to fetch the highest sum ever paid for an Indian painting at New Delhi's largest auction house Osian's decades later, at 1.26 million euros. In 1939 she wrote: “Europe belongs to Picasso, Matisse, Braque and many others. India belongs to me alone. "
Last years in Lahore
In 1939, Sher-Gil and Egan finally settled in Saraya , a village in the Gorakhpur district of India . When she lived there she was depressed. After a while, she and Egan decided to move to Lahore , which at the time was still part of India and was a growing cultural center. Now she had just gained wider recognition and accepted assignments. She must have guessed her imminent fate at this point, as she repeatedly said: "I have to work hard, I have to work quickly, because my time is very short." A few days before her first major solo exhibition in Lahore, however, she mysteriously fell ill and fell into a coma. She died on December 5, 1941, at the age of only 28, of blood loss, peritonitis, and lack of water. The cause of death was believed to be complications from a second, failed abortion performed by Egan. At least that's what a biography about the painter suggests. Her husband, who could not save her, was even accused of murder by Sher-Gil's mother. Her mother soon killed herself in desperation. The father also died soon afterwards, while the sister could not cope with the events until the end of her life.
Afterlife
Sher-Gil left a rich legacy that formed the basis for the National Gallery of Modern Art in New Delhi and has the largest collection of the artist's work. The majority of her around 200 paintings can be found there permanently or are in the family's possession. As a national cultural asset, they are not allowed to leave India. An exception was made in 2006/2007 for a retrospective in Munich's Haus der Kunst.
There are numerous photographs of Amrita Sher-Gil, many of which were taken with her father's camera and which document her special appearance. She also authored a considerable number of writings dealing with art in general, Indian film and her own work.
Sher-Gil's nephew Vivan Sundaram is the archivist of the Sher-Gil family history and edited Amrita's letters. He is considered an important contemporary Indian artist and has taken care of his family's estate.
On the occasion of its 100th year of birth, UNESCO , the cultural organization of the United Nations, declared 2013 to be the international Amrita Sher Gil year.
literature
- Deepak Ananth: An unfinished project , in: Vivan Sundaram (Ed.): Amrita Sher-Gil: an Indian family of artists in the 20th century . Exhibition catalog. Munich: Schirmer Mosel, 2006, ISBN 978-3-8296-0269-3 (on the occasion of the exhibition about Amrita Sher-Gil in the Haus der Kunst Munich 2006/2007)
- Sher Gil , in: Lexicon of Art. Volume VI, Leipzig: Seemann, 2004, ISBN 3-86502-084-4 , pp. 637f.
- Fiction
- Richard Weihe: The Milky Ocean , story in six pictures, Elster Verlag, Zurich 2011, ISBN 978-3-907668-83-2 .
Web links
- Literature about Amrita Sher-Gil in the catalog of the German National Library
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Amrita Sher-Gil - The Indian Frida Kahlo , at Cicero , online, no author, no date
- ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n iunx (2007) Obituary for the exhibition “Amrita Sher-Gil An Indian family of artists in the 20th century” at Haus der Kunst, Munich. nun.de, January 15, 2007, [1]
- ↑ a b c d Amrita Sher-Gil - India's answer to Frida Kahlo
- ↑ content: Painter: Amrita Sher-Gil - Jews of India | Indian Jews | Jews in India . In: Jews of India | Indian Jews | Jews in India . May 22, 2016 ( thejewsofindia.com [accessed March 30, 2018]).
- ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z aa Liebs, H. (2016). West-eastern diva. Süddeutsche Zeitung Magazin, issue 35/2006. August 29, 2006. https://sz-magazin.sueddeutsche.de/kunst/west-oestliche-diva-73872
- ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q Tariro Mzezewa (2018), Overlooked No More: Amrita Sher-Gil, a Pioneer of Indian Art. New York Times, June 20, 2018. https: //www.nytimes.com/2018/06/20/obituaries/amrita-shergil-dead.html
- ↑ https://www.christies.com/features/Amrita-Sher-Gil-6132-1.aspx
- ↑ a b c Yashodhara Dalmia (2006): "Amrita Sher-Gil: A Life".
- ↑ a b c d e f g https://www.documenta14.de/en/artists/21989/amrita-sher-gil
- ^ A b Ruth Vanita & Saleem Kidwai (2000). "Same-Sex Love in India".
- ↑ Krishna Chaitanya: A History of Indian Painting: The modern period. Abhinav Publications, 1976, ISBN 978-8-170-17310-6 , p. 188 ( limited preview in Google book search).
- ↑ http://ir.amu.ac.in/3390/1/T%205867.pdf
- ↑ Amrita Sher-Gil (author), Vivan Sundaram (ed.): Amrita Sher-Gil: A self-portrait in letters and writings. Tulika Books, Delhi 2010, ISBN 978-81-89487-59-1 publisher's announcement (English)
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Sher-Gil, Amrita |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Indian-Hungarian artist |
| DATE OF BIRTH | January 30, 1913 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Budapest , Austria-Hungary |
| DATE OF DEATH | December 5, 1941 |
| Place of death | Lahore , British India |