Amrita Sher-Gil

Umradha Shievkumar

Art & Women- Fall 2017

September 9, 2017

Amrita Sher-Gil- “The Indian Frida Kahlo”

Amrita Sher-Gil, accurately nicknamed “the Indian Frida Kahlo” was born on January 30, 1913 in Hungary. She is recognized as one of the pioneers of the modern movement in Indian art for women. Her mother was Marie Antoinette Gottesmann, a Hungarian opera singer, her father was Umrao Sher-Gil, a Sikh aristocrat. As a child she grew up living a very luxurious life, traveling and being able to live without restrictions. She was also rebellious as a teen, being expelled from her convent school because she claimed she was an atheist. At the age of 16 she entered the “École des Beaux-Arts” in Paris. Famous artists that have influenced her work include, Paul Cézanne, Amedeo Modigliani, and Paul Gauguin. Amrita was known to be extremely sexual, as portrayed through many of her works, she was never afraid to embrace her sexuality, often even writing to her parents about it, to which they burned some of her correspondence. She once said “How can one feel the beauty of a form, the intensity or the subtlety of a colour, the quality of a line, unless one is a sensualist of the eyes?” In 1934 she returned to India, where she found her love for art was further stimulated. After her visit to India it became clear that her works were meant to challenge the social and cultural norms of a typical Indian woman. Indian art was typically cultural and sentimental. Sher-Gil wanted to expose the parts of India that were never revealed to the public, the reality that she knew and learnt to love. In another instance she said “There are such wonderful, such glorious things in India, so many unexploited pictorial possibilities, that it is a pity that so few of us have ever attempted to look for them even (much less interpret them)” One of her most noted works is titled “The Wedding Party”. Many perceived it as portraying the reality of the sequestered lives of married women. Who on a daily basis are faced with boredom, submission and unfulfilled desire. The painting shows a young bride surrounded by other females as she prepares for her marriage. Her skin tone is pale compared to the other figures who share a similar darker skin tone, symbolizing a sense of fear and sadness. With no explanation we are left to wonder whether the mood is meant to celebrate her or bid her goodbye. Their faces gives off no expression but in some aspects it is clear that it is not what each of these women want.