Amrita Sher-Gil: A Self-Portrait in Letters and Writings

Amrita’s extant letters and writings are translated and reproduced from the originals, and in their entirety. The book draws on the primary text of these letters to open up a visual narrative around the artist’s oeuvre, complemented by a parallel text of notes that not only annotate but also entangle the personal in the web of contemporaneity. The editorial intervention expands the setting to include the artist’s voice, photo­graphs from the Sher-Gil family album, a collation of reviews from contemporary art critics, and excerpts from autobiographies and testimonies that touched Amrita’s life.

There are full-colour reproductions of 147 paintings by the artist, representing the largest such collection in print, as well as of her early sketches and watercolours.This archival effort makes for a definitive volume on the life, art and writings of Amrita Sher-Gil.

The book has a Foreword by Salman Rushdie; a Prologue and an Epilogue by Vivan Sundaram; a complete list of Amrita Sher-Gil’s 172 known oil paintings with thumbnail sketches and detailed captions; and a select bibliography of writings by and on Amrita Sher-Gil.

2013 is the birth centenary of Amrita Sher-Gil.

Vivan Sundaram was born in Shimla in 1943. He studied at the Faculty of Fine Arts, MS University of Baroda, Vadodara, and the Slade School of Fine Art, London, in the 1960s. He returned to India in 1970 and continued painting. A member of the Sher-Gil family, Vivan Sundaram has been engaged with the Sher-Gil project for over thirty years – as artist, curator, editor, archivist.