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Lot 74

 

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My dear Denise,
...I so wanted to work there next week to finish your portrait comfortably... Would it be too much to ask you to come and pose in the afternoon instead of the morning? You know it will only be for a day or two. And I so much want to finish your portrait."

- AMRITA SHER-GIL IN A LETTER TO DENISE PROUTAUX, MAY/JUNE 1932
(Vivan Sundaram, Amrita Sher-Gil: A Self-Portrait in Letters and Writings - Volume I,... My dear Denise,
...I so wanted to work there next week to finish your portrait comfortably... Would it be too much to ask you to come and pose in the afternoon instead of the morning? You know it will only be for a day or two. And I so much want to finish your portrait."

- AMRITA SHER-GIL IN A LETTER TO DENISE PROUTAUX, MAY/JUNE 1932
(Vivan Sundaram, Amrita Sher-Gil: A Self-Portrait in Letters and Writings - Volume I, New Delhi: Tulika Books, 2010, p. 71)

Born to an aristocratic family in Budapest in 1913, Amrita Sher-Gil displayed a precocious talent for art from an early age. From as young as six, she filled sketchbooks with numerous drawings and watercolours based on Hungarian folktales and fairytales by the Brothers Grimm and Hans Christian Anderson and often wrote and illustrated stories of her own. These childhood drawings reveal her predilection for the female form, a subject that would go on to earn her renown as one of India’s greatest modern artists for the keen sensitivity with which she portrayed women and their inner lives.

Sher-Gil’s family moved to Shimla in 1921 where she began receiving formal instruction in art from artists Hall Beven- Petman and Major Whitmarsh. She also enrolled in a school in Florence for a few months in 1924. Though short-lived, this exposed her to the works of Italian masters which would have a direct influence on her own artistic style. Her uncle Ervin Baktay, who came to visit the family in 1926 when she was 13, was impressed with her prodigious artistic talent and encouraged her to “move away from her highly emotional early paintings and to draw from reality, emphasising structure rather than naturalism.” (Vivan Sundaram, “Prologue,” Amrita Sher-Gil A Self-Portrait in Letters and Writings - Volume I, New Delhi: Tulika Books, 2010, p. xI) He also suggested that she draw from models, a technique she would frequently use throughout her artistic career. “It is to you I owe my skill in drawing,” she once told him. (N Iqbal Singh, “Amrita Sher-Gil,” 1982, Critical Collective, online)

On Baktay’s suggestion that Sher-Gil be sent to Europe to study art, the family relocated to Paris in 1929 and she was enrolled at the Grande Chaumière under Pierre Vaillant. Later that year, at age 16, she competed for and won admission to the studio of Lucien Simon at the École des Beaux-Arts where she studied till 1933. The bohemian atmosphere of Paris proved vital to her personal and artistic growth and her vibrant personality blossomed. “There she learnt, for the first time, the mystery of the anatomy of the human form. She discovered the significance of line, form and colour. She fell under the spell of Gauguin and Cezanne... Amrita was full of admiration for Modigliani... and her one great love was Vincent van Gogh... Though full of admiration for all these artists, Amrita was never either derivative or initiative...” (N Iqbal Singh, Critical Collective, online)

While at the École des Beaux-Arts, Sher-Gil began painting in oil for the first time and sketched male and female nudes, portraits, and still lifes predominantly academic in style. She preferred to paint from models and her subjects were often people close to her-fellow students, friends, and her sister Indira. The present lot is a portrait of art writer and critic Denise Proutaux who became close friends with Sher-Gil and Indira during their time in France. The three young women would holiday at the seaside resort town of Royan, where Proutaux’s aunt owned a home, and would often write to each other when apart. Recalling the first time they met, Proutaux writes, “I met Amrita in October 1931... She was... small, thin and particularly beautiful. But it was not her beauty which grabbed me, but a quality radiating from her being. She was full of vitality and a feeling of confidence. She had strong views on everything but they were never simple generalisations or banalities.” (Katalin Keserü, “Amrita Sher-Gil the Indian Painter and Her French and Hungarian Connections,” Yashodhara Dalmia ed., Amrita Sher-Gil Art & Life, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2014, p. 87)

Proutaux became a muse for Sher-Gil during her stay in France, sitting for four portraits that the artist often referred to in her correspondence. She modelled for one of her most well-known works, Young Girls, 1932, which depicts Proutaux seated partially nude with long, flowing tresses opposite Indira, and won Sher-Gil a Gold Medal and a position as associate of the Grand Salon of Paris. The same year, the artist also painted another portrait of her in a black beret, following which she began a large canvas featuring Proutaux, Indira, herself, and a model. She later cut out Proutaux’s portrait and gifted it to her, though the work was eventually lost after World War II.

Painted when Sher-Gil was only 19, the present lot is an exceptional painting from a rich formative period in her tragically short career when she was exploring her artistic language. Unlike the flat planar compositions influenced by Pahari miniatures that would define her works of the late 1930s, it stays true to the academic style of the time. One can observe the intensity of her observation and the passion and empathy with which she depicted women, in a display of a maturity rarely seen in an artist so young. “In her portraits, we can follow not only her feeling for colour, but also the models represented becoming living characters… Her painting technique is bold, the colours pure and strong, the forms well-coordinated thanks to her studies in drawing. A remarkable feature is the brave projection of the model’s characteristics, which sometimes determines the whole composition.” (Keserü, p. 73)

Many of Sher-Gil’s most affecting portraits feature female subjects apparent in their vulnerability with melancholic expressions and downcast eyes. However, in the present lot, Proutaux confronts the viewer with a direct, self- assured gaze and lips firmly set. “...through a woman’s eye, an unknown reality is revealed, without idealization and alienation, a vibrant, indefinable, complex and valid picture of a woman.” (Keserü, p. 76) Her tightly coiffed hair and red dress suggest a sense of restraint but are softened by the spray of flowers in the background, which are painted with more muted reds and greens in an almost Impressionist style. Quoting Van Gogh, Sher-Gil once declared, “I want to express with greens and with reds, the terrific human passions.” (Keserü, p. 87)

Together the composition reveals the artist’s mastery of conflicting emotions and her ability to showcase the nuances of the human body. This would eventually extend to a skilful reconciliation of her European and Indian identities and artistic influences in later works such as The Story Teller (1937) and Bride’s Toilet (1937). One of Sher- Gil’s earliest supporters Karl Khandalavala observed in his 1944 monograph, “Amrita Sher-Gil’s figures are always static but her colour organisations are vibrant, glowing, and intense. This contradistinction, which is apparent throughout her work, is an expression of the character of her emotions, both in life and art, which were a strange combination of the static and the dynamic.” (Deepak Ananth, “An Unfinished Project,” Amrita Sher-Gil An Indian Artist Family of the Twentieth Century, New Delhi: PHOTOINK, 2008, p. 21)

The present lot is thus not only an important early record of Sher-Gil’s personal life and intimate relationships that were most dear to her but also testament to her enigmatic personality, the singularity of her work, and immense artistic talent that has earned her a rightful place as one of India’s most beloved and influential modern women artists and the only woman among the country’s nine National Treasure Artists.

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