State of the Art

The Saffronart Blog

Posts tagged with Women artists

Inside Amrita Sher-Gil’s Ladies’ Enclosure

July 8, 2021

The Indian art world has, over the years, seen various artists making significant and often path-breaking contributions through their craft. But there are few artists who are as fascinating and brilliant as Amrita Sher-Gil. 

Considered to be a pioneer of modernism in India, Sher-Gil’s short but highly fruitful career established her as an eminent artist with an aesthetic sensibility that blended European and Indian elements skilfully. Through her work, Sher-Gil captured the lives and experiences of women in early 20th century India. Her paintings are lauded for their timeless themes and qualities that powerfully resonate with women’s narratives even today.

Amrita in her studio in Simla, 1937 | Photo: Umrao Singh Sher-Gil
Image courtesy: Umrao Singh Sher-Gil Archive, New Delhi

Sher-Gil was born in 1913 to a Marie Antoinette Gottesmann, Hungarian-Jewish opera singer and Umrao Singh Sher-Gil Majithia, a Sikh aristocrat, scholar and photographer. After her promising young talent was discovered at a really young age, Sher-Gil received formal training in art from reputable schools and tutors. In 1929, upon the recommendation of her uncle, Sher-Gil went on to study art at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris. The following years marked the beginning of her success as an artist. Nonetheless, a newfound appreciation and longing for Indian art as well as a desire to be closer to her Indian ancestry prompted Sher-Gil to relocate to India.

Sher-Gil’s return to India in 1934 saw a change in her artistic practice. Along with a transformed colour palette that reflected earthy Indian tones, the subjects of her paintings also became increasingly representative of her surroundings.

Amrita painting In the Ladies’ Enclosure, Saraya, Gorakhpur, 1938 | Image courtesy: Vivan Sundaram

The oil on canvas masterpiece In the Ladies’ Enclosure was painted in 1938, a few years after her return to India. This seminal work of art marks the zenith of Sher-Gil’s evolution as an artist and is the outcome of her years spent in training and developing her talent. 

Painted at her family’s estate in Saraya, Gorakhpur, the work depicts a group of women gathered in a field. Notable artist, and Sher-Gil’s nephew, Vivan Sundaram explains that the female subjects present in this painting are, in fact, people known to Sher-Gil – including members of the Majithia family who had been living in the estate at Saraya over long periods of time.

Bride’s Toilet, 1937

The painting offers an arrangement of subjects that is similar to her earlier work Bride’s Toilet, 1937. In both paintings, the main subject is a young woman positioned in the centre with an older woman dressing her hair. However, both paintings, even though executed just a year apart, showcase varied painting styles and techniques.

A striking characteristic of In the Ladies’ Enclosure is the composition’s flat relief, indicating a further departure from realism. As noted by Sundaram, “The bride’s profiled features are drawn schematically: on a pale pink skin colour, four notational lines for the eye and a tiny dot for the pupil. This is to de-romanticize the face – modern art’s agenda to get rid of the shackles of realist painting. Amrita’s flat application of paint and minimal drawing gives this person a remote presence, a quiet austerity.” (Vivan Sundaram, Amrita Sher-Gil: In the Ladies’ Enclosure: A Close Reading and a Walk Through the Enclosure, Mumbai: Saffronart, 2021)

In the Ladies’ Enclosure, 1938, Oil on canvas, 21.5 x 31.5 in | Estimate: Rs 30 – 40 crores ($4.2 – 5.6 million)

In the painting, Sher-Gil uses a palette that is charged with vibrant and essentially Indian hues. The central figure dressed in a vermillion salwar-kameez and the reddish-brown sari-clad figure standing next to her are both connected by their vastly different shades of red. The small girl in a magenta kurta and the hibiscus flowers further diversify the reddish tones in the foreground. Accompanying the reds are the starkly different, yet complementing, blue and green tones of the land, hedge and sky. Art historian Yashodhara Dalmia explains that Sher-Gil’s choice of colours is perhaps an attempt to “bring out the contrast between the hot reds and the greens, one finds in the early Rajput miniatures” (Yashodhara Dalmia, Amrita Sher-Gil: A Life, New Delhi: Penguin, 2006, pp. 106-107)

While working on this composition, Sher-Gil was also attempting plein air painting, incorporating the rich stylistic features of Rajput and Pahari miniatures. “In these she freely ignored the actual landscapes but used them in part in her compositions and colour organizations. Nor were the landscapes a motif for the foreground but were an integral part of the composition.” (Dalmia, p. 107)

Sher-Gil painted In the Ladies’ Enclosure in the final years of her brief but prodigious life. After her death in 1941, a portfolio of twelve of her most important works, chosen by Sher-Gil prior to her passing away, was posthumously published. In the Ladies’ Enclosure was one of the twelve.

Watch Saffronart CEO Dinesh Vazirani as he takes us through the legendary Amrita Sher-Gil’s life and artistic journey, culminating in In the Ladies’ Enclosure.

Read the essay by Vivan Sundaram to find out more about the artist’s unique application of colour and who the subjects in the painting are.

Bid on Sher-Gil’s works at Saffronart’s Summer Live Auction on 13 July 2021.

She Came, She Painted, She Conquered

June 7, 2017

A look at five women artists who redefined womanhood as a subject of enquiry.

Read more ›

Homai Vyarawalla at the Rubin Museum of Art

August 6, 2012

Josheen Oberoi on Homai Vyarawalla’s retrospective at the Rubin Museum of Art, New York

New York:  Homai Vyarawalla (1913 – 2012) was India’s first female photojournalist and played a pivotal role in documenting India’s political history from the 1940s through 1970. Candid: The Lens and Life of Homai Vyarawalla, an exhibition of her photographs and related ephemera, opened at the Rubin Museum of Art in New York City on July 6 and is the first solo showing of her work in the United States. Unfortunately, she was not able to attend this exhibition, as she passed away in January at the age of 98. Vyarawalla was widely eulogized in India and abroad, including in the New York Times. Her presence as the first woman in a nascent profession like photojournalism (as it was in 1940s India) has often framed the discussion about her importance in India’s history. But her iconic status is equally deserved by her command over her craft, as is evident in the exhibition.

Installation image of Candid: The Lens and Life of Homai Vyarawalla
Photograph by David De Armas
Image Courtesy: Rubin Museum of Art, New York

The exhibition is organized thematically in clusters ranging from three to six images, around her personal photography, photojournalistic career post 1942, and commercial freelance work documenting the social life of Delhi in the late 1940s. Entering the exhibition space, we are first welcomed by a showcase that holds Vyarawalla’s two favorite cameras – the Roleiflex and Speed Graphic Pacemaker – most commonly used at that time. The solidity of these cameras (in stark comparison to the sleekness of digital cameras today) immediately establishes the tone of the exhibition, setting us up for a trip down memory lane. This is further enhanced by the immediacy of viewing the medium of gelatin silver prints in the exhibition.

The first set of photographs is from the 1930s, when Vyarawalla lived in Bombay and was a student at the Sir J.J. School of Arts. These predate her political photojournalism and capture everyday and mundane scenes in Bombay. These images are personal, subjective records of Vyarawalla’s Bombay – of VT Station, her classmate Rehana Mogul, and an expressive image of a monsoon-threatened Marine Drive. Many of these images were published in the weeklies of that time, particularly the Illustrated Weekly of India. Her later commercial work in Delhi chronicles the more elite social life of a city that was the center of politics in the 1940s. Two of these prints of parties at the Delhi Gymkhana Club have been included in the show. Out of this ‘non-political’ work, an exceptional photograph in the show is Fox Hunt. Shot in Delhi in the 1940s it is a moody, impressionistic take of a cold foggy morning in the city. Self-described as her favorite, this image exemplifies Vyarawalla’s ability to capture the atmosphere in which the moments she documented took place, suggesting a narrative instead of a sterile moment.

A Fox Hunt in Delhi led by Col. Sahni, Early 1940’s
Gelatin Silver Print
From the exhibition: Candid: The Lens and Life of Homai Vyarawalla
Collection: Alkazi Collection of Photography
Image Courtesy: Rubin Museum of Art, New York

Mohammad Ali Jinnah at his last Press Conference before leaving for Pakistan; August 1947
Gelatin Silver Print
From the exhibition: Candid: The Lens and Life of Homai Vyarawalla
Collection: Alkazi Collection of Photography
Image Courtesy: Rubin Museum of Art, New York

This is true of her political photography as well. Vyarawalla moved to Delhi with her husband Maneckshaw, also a photojournalist, in 1942 where they were employed by the British Information Services. Her political photojournalism began with the end of the Second World War and India’s path to independence in the mid-1940s that are represented in the exhibition through images like her portrait of Mohammad Ali Jinnah. Present at seemingly every major event of the time, the next cluster of images is of the funeral and cremation of Mahatma Gandhi in 1948. These include intimate images of the Mountbatten family and Gandhi’s funeral procession.

The ashes of Mahatma Gandhi being carried in a procession, Allahabad; February 1948
Gelatin Silver Print
From the exhibition: Candid: The Lens and Life of Homai Vyarawalla
Collection: The Alkazi Collection of Photography
Image Courtesy: Rubin Museum of Art, New York

The display then moves to Vyarawalla’s favorite subject: Jawaharlal Nehru, India’s first Prime Minister. His pervasive presence in her photographs over his seventeen years in office underline this, and offer an organic portrait of him as a public figure – in jest, relaxed, caught in a lonely moment of exhaustion, and in his interactions with the many foreign dignitaries that visited India, his famed charm and charisma visibly occupying the frame.

Prime Minister Nehru waiting for a dignitary to arrive at the Red Fort; 1950’s
Gelatin Silver Print
From the exhibition: Candid: The Lens and Life of Homai Vyarawalla
Collection: Alkazi Collection of Photography
Image Courtesy: Rubin Museum of Art, New York

Dr. Helen Keller, who was calling on President Dr. Rajendra Prasad at the Rashtrapati Bhawan, being greeted by, Prime Minister Nehru who had come to see her; 1955
Gelatin Silver Print
From the exhibition: Candid: The Lens and Life of Homai Vyarawalla
Collection: Alkazi Collection of Photography
Image Courtesy: Rubin Museum of Art, New York

Ho Chi Minh, President of North Vietnam being escorted by Pandit Nehru and Dr. Rajendra Prasad; 1958
Gelatin Silver Print
From the exhibition: Candid: The Lens and Life of Homai Vyarawalla
Collection: Alkazi Collection of Photography
Image Courtesy: Rubin Museum of Art, New York

The public figures that visited independent India were also extensively photographed by Vyarawalla. I found this selection of images and their curation in the exhibition particularly strong. They document the ethos of India as a nation immediately after independence. From Nehru’s playful interaction with Ho Chi Minh, at an otherwise grave political meeting, to meetings with Dr. Helen Keller, President Eisenhower, the Chinese Premier Chou En-lai in the days that the slogan ‘Hindi Chini Bhai Bhai’ was echoing around the country, all these feel like historical records of a new, exultant nation and the role it predicted for itself in the world.

Vyarawalla’s eye almost always caught these figures in unguarded moments of ease, and her portraits lack the stiffness of predictable posed photographs.

An image particularly relevant to contemporary India is of the Dalai Lama’s first visit in 1956. This was three years before his final, permanent escape to India and it is telling of her journalistic instinct that Vyarawalla chose to travel to Sikkim to photograph this occasion.

The Dalai Lama in ceremonial dress enters India through a high mountain pass. He is followed by the Panchen Lama, Sikkim, India; 1956
Gelatin Silver Print
From the exhibition: Candid: The Lens and Life of Homai Vyarawalla
Collection: Alkazi Collection of Photography
Image Courtesy: Rubin Museum of Art, New York

What is striking in Vyarawalla’s works is that the perspective she chose in all her images is appropriate to the moment, be it the intimate framing of Mahatma Gandhi on his funeral pyre or the low angle shot of Nehru releasing a dove, making him larger than life. There is also a marked lack of sentimentality in her compositions as a press photographer. She had an ability to maintain distance and still capture the personalities of the subjects and the events. This made viewing her photographs an engrossing experience, allowing me to create portraits of the time she lived in and captured.

In addition to her photographs, there are two other treasure troves in this exhibition. A showcase that spans the breadth of the gallery includes Vyarawalla’s contact prints from the 1940s through 1970. Also her press cards, hand colored Illustrated Weekly covers, invitations and thank you notes from the political figures she photographed – this case builds an image of the cultural life of Delhi during those years. Another gem is an excerpt from a documentary on her, directed by Anik Gosh and supported by Sparrow, where she is interviewed by Sabeena Gadihoke, her biographer (India in Focus: Camera Chronicles of Homai Vyarawalla, Mapin/Parzor, 2006) and a collaborator on this exhibition. Sprightly and undiminished, Vyarawalla speaks freely – on her beloved cameras, her courteous male colleagues of yore, the remarkable integrity of that time and most importantly, her method. She says, and I paraphrase, that there was no time to focus. ‘We had to put our distance, fit the picture and just click’.

This exhibition is presented in collaboration with the Alkazi Foundation for the Arts, New Delhi, and will remain on view till January 14, 2013. A larger retrospective of Vyarawalla’s work was held in 2010-2011 at the National Gallery of Modern Art, in New Delhi and Mumbai. A rare opportunity to view these images in person in New York, the show is definitely worth a dekko. Located in the museum’s Theater Level Gallery, admission to it is free of charge, a fact the show’s curator Beth Citron said Homai Vyarawalla would especially have been pleased with in an earlier interview with Saffronart.

Bharti Kher and Rina Banerjee in Art+Auction Magazine’s 50 Next Most Collectible Artists

June 12, 2012

Manjari Sihare explores Art + Auction’s June 2012 feature on the most collectible artists of the coming future.

New York: The current issue of Art+Auction magazine features a refreshing list of “50 Next Most Collectible Artists.” The list compiled by the magazine is based on conversations with collectors, art advisors, auction house specialists and dealers. One almost expects such lists to be predictable but this list includes the art of two Indian women artists, the Indian born and New York based Rina Banerjee, and Bharti Kher, who was born in London and lives and works in New Delhi. This says something not just about these artists, but about the market for contemporary Indian art in general, which is often acknowledged at the tail end of its modern counterpart.

The magazine editors emphasize that the artists who have made it to the list “have demonstrated past strength at auction or in primary sales and show promise of continued development. We did not want to merely list the people at the top of the market, but to cite those who might find themselves there in 10, 20, or 30 years.” Editor Benjamin Genocchio elaborates on the parameters for such an evaluation including comparisons with peers of the same generation, as also major next steps in an artist career – a major museum show or a change in dealer representation. Banerjee and Kher are regularly represented in international mainstream art fairs as also at leading museums across the world.  In the recent past, Banerjee had a solo booth at the Hong Kong Art Fair, her first in that part of the world, while Bharti Kher debuted in New York this March at the Hauser & Wirth Gallery. In the coming year, both artists are poised to participate in important shows, beginning with India: Art Now at the Arken Museum of Contemporary Art, Denmark. Further, Kher is slotted for a solo show at the Parasol Unit Foundation for Contemporary Art in London, a publicly funded institution, while Banerjee is slated to participate in the prestigious 7th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art (APT7) in Queensland, Brisbane.

For the Art+Auction website, click here.