Amrita-Sher-Gil: A Life

Amirta was as filled with passion and colour as her canvasses. Beautiful and brilliant, she lived life on her own terms, scandalizing the staid society of her times with her love affairs and unconventional ways.

Born in 1913 in Budapest, to a Hungarian mother and a Sikh father, Amrita spent her early years in Hungary, India as well as France, where she studied at the renowed Ecole des Beaux Arts. Before her untimely death in 1941, she left behind a body of work that not only established her as one of the foremost artists of the century but also as a most eloquent symbol of fusion between the East and the West.

In this fascinating biography art historian Yashodhara Dalmia charts the course of Amrita's turbulent life, and the development of her dazzling artistic career, as she traces the influnces that shaped her examines her relationship with her family, friends, loversand mentors and capture her charismatic aura. Extensively researched and brimming with reminiscences of those who knew Amirta, this is a compelling portrait of the tragically young age of twenty-eight was probably unaware of her own greatness and of her priceless legacy to Indian art.

About the Author:

He is and art historian and an independent curator based in New Delhi. In December 1996, on the inauguration of the National Gallery of modern Art in Mumbai, she curated an exhibition of the Progressive Artists Group titled The Moderns. She has written several essays, articles and reviews on contemporary Indian Art; The progressive , was published in 2001. in 2003, she edited the volume Contemporary Indian Art: other Realities, consisting of essays by several Indian and Foreign Scholars. At present she is working on a book on South Asia art.