Amrita Shergill From lens of Her Father She still remain an Icon in India-Pakistan

Amrita Sher-Gil continues to fascinate and engage people’s curiosity decades after her untimely death in 1941. An artist of repute, she’s remembered for her rebelliousness, bohemian lifestyle and numerous sexual escapades, with men and women, not least of all because she happened to belong to a society as traditional as India’s in the early ‘40s. Dismissed by some and revered by others as a pioneering artist and icon, she has left behind a multi-faceted and colourful legacy that’s constantly re-imagined but few offer a perspective vastly different from the other. It’s only when we peered at her life through her own father’s eyes (or for the purpose of this story, lens) that it felt like there was an opportunity to learn something new about Sher-gil.
Daughter of Sikh aristocrat, Umrao Singh Sher-Gil Majithia and Hungarian opera singer Marie Antoinette Gottesmann-Baktay, Amrita was far from ordinary, growing up in the throws of European bourgeois in her mother’s homeland, Budapest, where they were forced to stay because of WWI till 1921. Along with her parents and sister Indira, Amrita was only able to move back to the family estate in Shimla when she was eight. Through her life she travelled between Hungary, France, Italy and India, journeys that shaped her identity as a person, as well as an artist, a lot of which was ultimately documented and immortalised by the photography of her father. An amatuer photographer of sorts, Umrao Singh is considered to be one of the pioneers of photography in India.
Scroll down to see a selection of Umrao Singh Sher-Gil’s photographs of his infamous daughter through the years.