Amrita Sher-Gil wild-woman Indian artist

Bride's Toilet by Sher-Gil

Elephants


I seem to keep picking up the names of new and intriguing women of history in my travels lately. The latest is Amrita Sher-Gil, a painter half Hungarian and half Sikh, who died mysteriously in 1941. Her works were on display at the Haus der Kunst in Munich as part of another Night at the Museums we participated in.

Her stuff is great -- especially when she paints in red. You can see that she like Gauguin (She has a self-portrait as a Tahitian), but there's also surrealism and geometric abstraction -- and her subjects are Indian peasants and poverty and animals and landscapes. She compared herself to Picasso.

Talent and ego she did not lack for. Her family was artistic, wealthy and cosmopolitan. She was kind of like the Madonna of her day, however. She delighted in raising eyebrows with her work, her writings and her affairs with members of both sex around the world.

She died suddently and unexpectedly at the age of 28 in Lahore. Some accounts say it was periotinitis after a botched abortion.

Good her and check it out.