Page 66 - Pundole's Auction M0015

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AMRITA SHER-GIL of hand, revealing her zest for the human form in all its
diversity and variations.’ (Yashodhara Dalmia, Amrita Sher-
1913?–1941 Gil: A Life, New Delhi, 2006, p. 31)

Nude Study It helped that from an early age, she enjoyed drawing. ‘I
have drawn and painted, I think, from my tiniest childhood,
Charcoal on paper and I recollect that the presents I most looked forward to
21? × 16? in. (55.6 × 41.7 cm.) as a child were paint boxes, coloured pencils, drawing
paper, and picture books. Rather independent in spirit even
??35,00,000?–?45,00,000 at that age, it will be of psychological interest to note that
I detested the process of ‘colouring in’ the drawings of
NATIONAL ART TREASURE – NON-EXPORTABLE ITEM picture books and never allowed ‘grown ups’ to draw
(Please refer to the Terms and Conditions of Sale things for me to colour in (a practice that most children
at the back of the catalogue) adore, leaving the most difficult task, drawing, to others
and monopolising the more natural and pleasant one
PROVENANCE: of colour for themselves). I always drew and painted
Purchased from the artist’s family by the current owner. everything myself and resented correction or interference
with my work.’ (ibid., p.?15)
‘Amrita painted women best, herself included. She
portrays herself voluptuously, pensively, happily, or as a Sher-Gil preferred to paint from live models, as an
Gauguinesque nude.’ (Richard Bartholomew, ‘Amrita Sher- alternative to the professional models available at the
Gil?–?Her Life and Paintings’, Indian and Foreign Review, Ecole, and she often asked friends, fellow students or her
May 1, 1972, reproduced in Richard Bartholomew, The Art sister, Indira to pose for her. The strong European elements
Critic, New Delhi, 2012, p. 269) in the current work indicate that it was probably produced
during her Paris years.
Amrita Sher-Gil was born in Budapest in 1913. Her father,
Umrao Singh Sher-Gil, a Sikh aristocrat from the Majithia
clan was a Sanskrit and Persian scholar and her mother,
Marie Antoinette, was a Hungarian opera singer. The
couple lived in Budapest at the time their first daughter
was born, having travelled there from Lahore a few months
earlier. The outbreak of World War I the next year did not
allow the family to come back to India until the spring of
1921, and Amrita and her younger sister Indira spent their
early years in Hungary. Her early education continued in
India until 1929, where the family alternated between living
in their summer home in Simla and the family estates in
the village of Saraya.

Given the strong inclination she showed for painting, at
the age of sixteen Sher-Gil’s parents decided to move the
family back to France so that Amrita could study art in
Paris. Technically, her years at the Ecole des Beaux Arts
made her proficient in European Academic Realism which
formed the basis of any art education at the time. In her
two years at the Ecole and the subsequent time she spent
in Paris, she created over sixty paintings and hundreds
of sketches, primarily in charcoal, of the female nude so
that she could perfect her technique and ‘comprehend the
human form in all its veracity… While technically academic
exercises, there were done with great energy and sureness

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