Amrita Sher-Gil
The Sikh-Hungarian painter who became the founder of modern Indian art and died in Lahore at 28.
Amrita Sher-Gil was born in Budapest to Umrao Singh Sher-Gil, a Sikh aristocrat and scholar from Majithia, and a Hungarian opera singer. She studied painting in Paris, where her early work won prizes, but decided that her destiny lay in India and returned in 1934.
In India she painted the poor, women, villagers, in a style that combined what she had learned in Paris with the Ajanta frescoes and the Pahari and Mughal miniatures she studied. Paintings such as Three Girls, Village Scene and the Bride's Toilet are among the most celebrated works of Indian art; she spent time at the family estate at Saraya in Gorakhpur and in Simla.
She moved to Lahore in 1941 with her husband and died there suddenly in December of that year, aged twenty-eight. The Indian government declared her work a national art treasure, and she is considered the founder of modern Indian painting.
Gallery
8 works
Pictures from Wikimedia Commons; select one to see it full size with its credit.
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