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The Scandalous Life of Amrita Sher-Gil
The Indian Frida Kahlo revolutionized painting and died at the age of 28
Amrita Sher-Gil, “the Indian Frida Kahlo”, was obsessed with eroticism and pushed to the boundaries in one of the most conservative countries, India. She lived life to the fullest as if it was her last day. She seduced Jawaharlal Nehru, India’s first prime minister, and anyone she wanted. Amrita was irresistible and unchaste. And an extremely talented painter with a mixed Hungarian-Indian identity. Her mother was a Jew, her father a Sikh, and they baptized her a Roman Catholic. However, even wealth and fame could not save her. Amrita Sher-Gil, the most prominent painter of India, dies at 28 in Lahore under mysterious circumstances.
Childhood in Hungary
I am especially interested in Amrita’s life because she was born and grew up in Hungary, my homeland. Strangely, she is almost unknown in my country. Whereas, in India, she is the most famous artist of the 20th century.
Her father, Umrao Sher-Gil, was a wealthy Sikh aristocrat, a scholar of Sanskrit and Urdu, a reputed photographer, and a friend of Queen Victoria. He was the son of the Raja in Shimla, in northern India, and thus the heir to the royal throne. He met Marie Antoinette Gottesmann, a daughter of a wealthy…
