A self-portrait by the artist has sold for $2.92 million in Sotheby’s New York auction, setting a new record for an Indian woman artist - The Hindu - March 20, 2015

A rare self-portrait by Amrita Sher-Gil has sold for $2.92 million in Sotheby’s New York auction, setting a new record for an Indian woman artist.

Sher-Gil’s oil-on-canvas masterpiece fetched the highest total of $2,920,000, well over the $1.2-$1.8 million estimate for a South Asian Art sale at Sotheby’s since 2007, auctioneers said in a statement today.

Born in Budapest to an Indian Sikh father and Hungarian mother, Sher-Gil painted the portrait in 1932 when she was 19.

It is one of the very few of her canvases that are in private circulation outside India, where her work is among those declared “National Art Treasures” by the government and cannot be taken out of the country.

Sotheby’s two sales of Indian Art on March 17-18, raked in a total of $16,632,875 comfortably exceeding the high estimate.

Auctioneers said the Modern and Contemporary South Asian Art sale brought in $10,589,000, the highest total for a Sotheby’s sale in the category since 2007 and a 60 percent increase on the equivalent sale last season, a result that was largely driven by the entry of several major new collectors into the market.

Yamini Mehta, International Head of Indian and South Asian Art at Sotheby’s said: “These sales were ground-breaking for Indian and South Asian Art at Sotheby’s.”

“The appearance at auction of a work by Amrita Sher-Gil is a historic event and so it is fitting that it led to our best sale result in a decade,” she said. Priyanka Mathew, Head of Sales of Modern and Contemporary South Asian Art at Sotheby’s New York added, “The price is a record for both the artist and also for any Indian female painter. The spirited bidding on the ‘Self-Portrait’ came from three continents and lasted over ten minutes to result in a landmark price,” she said.

At the same auction, a Rabindranath Tagore self-untitled portrait went to a European private buyer for $225,000. An oil-on-canvas by V S Gaitonde fetched $2,290,000, followed by an untitled work by Jagdish Swaminathan from his bird tree and mountain series, which went under the hammer for $2,290,000.

“The group of Rabindranath Tagore drawings, which have been in the same private collection since being purchased from the artist, was a further highlight and yet again demonstrated that collectors will extend well over high estimates for well-priced works that have not appeared previously at auction,” Ms. Mehta said.

Exhibition History

1. Displayed in the exhibition 'Amrita Shergil: The Passionate Quest' at the National Gallery of Modern Art, New Delhi.
2. Amrita Sher-Gil Birth Centenary Celebrations organized at UNESCO, Paris, by the National Gallery of Modern Art.
3. An exhibition titled Amrita Shergil - An Artist family in the 20th Century was organized in Munich, Germany from 3.10.2006 to 10.01.2007.
4. An exhibition titled Amrita Sher-Gil was organized at Tate Modern, London from 18.02.2007 to 22.04.2007.

Additional Information

Amrita Sher-Gil flashed through the Indian artistic horizon like an incandescent meteor. Her place in the trajectory of Indian modern art is unquestionably pre-eminent. Her aesthetic sensibility shows not surprisingly a blend of European and Indian elements.

Her command over handling of oil medium and use of colour, as well as her vigorous brushwork and strong feeling for composition, all go towards giving a dazzling quality to her genius. Sher-Gil's Sikh father, Umrao Singh Sher-Gil was an aristocratic estate owner with a passion for photography and her mother Marie Antoinette was a Hungarian. Sher- Gil's art education was completed in Paris where she was influenced by the artists like Gauguin.

While her childhood years were spent travelling between India and Europe, she returned to India in the mid-30s to make India her home. Sher-Gil looked at the Indian art traditions with a fresh eye and she gazed at the sad-eyed people around her with empathy. She became excited by the Indian miniature traditions and as a consequence of her travels to the caves of Ajanta and Ellora and South India, her visual language underwent a dramatic transformation.

Her palette became saturated with intense reds, ochres, browns, yellows, and greens, and her figuration expressed a new visual reality. But she interspersed these paintings of her land with paintings that she practiced in Paris. Sher-Gil was passionate about life and yet she harboured within her a deep sense of melancholy that found expression in the pensive faces of her subjects and their languorous poses.

Sher-Gil's visual language introduced a host of new elements in modern Indian art as the expressive representation of the female figure and her ingeniously narrating elements of miniature paintings in her work. We also see intimate portrayals of domestic scenes. NGMA has a large collection of 107 of her paintings covering an extensive range of important works both from her Paris days and from her Indian stay.

Image: Self-portrait - By Amrita Sher-Gil (Oil on Canvas)

Rare Amrita Sher-Gil portrait sells for record $2.92 million

References:

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