CHENNAI: From her childhood, Amrita Sher-Gil drew and illustrated stories of her own. But caught between her identities of being a Hungarian and an Indian, Amrita’s early works reflected her search for belonging. And it was on this quest that she made strides in the world of art that consumed her, celebrated her, and also derided her.
With nuggets and tidbits of a world that evolved and revolved around modern India’s first professional female artist, Amrita Sher-Gil: Rebel with a Paintbrush by Anita Vachharajani is a vibrant canvas that gives a 360-degree view of Amrita’s life. For this book, Anita was chosen as the recipient of the Sahitya Akademi’s Bal Sahitya Puraskar Award in December 2021.
“Winning this award gives me a push to try and tell more of these stories. It gives me an enormous sense of validation and appreciation of course, but it also makes me feel like I have the responsibility to tell more of these stories well. I tend to be a slow, meticulous sort of worker, but now I feel like I should write more, but perhaps not as slowly as I’ve done in the past,” she conveys.
An organic process
What a reader gets from a book at one point is different from what they get five years later, believes Anita. This book, she hopes, grows with the child. “Initially, as a reader, you are only interested in looking at the drawings and the illustrations. Then, you are interested in the story and slowly, in the history of what was happening around the world at that time. As you look at the different paintings that the artist is making, your perspective changes a little bit. I hope that the book would allow for expansive reading,” she shares.
During her research, Anita had to often pause to internalise art and art movements. “I realised if I have to jump out of the story so often, then the kids would have to do so as well. So, I thought of giving a little bit of information right there, and then they could read up more about it at their own pace,” she explains.
While the style and presentation took shape organically, her daughter and her friends had a role to play too in her creation. “I was showing the prints to my daughter and her friends. They would look at Amrita’s academic style, her early style, and call it ‘good’. They would say, ‘Aunty, she was drawing so nicely, why did she start drawing so badly?’ Their definition of ‘bad’ was for her works of later, which is consciously different from her early art. So, I had two options — I could either say that Amrita’s style changed from an academic and realistic style to a much more modern style, or I could show Amrita’s paintings, arranged in a chronological way, and get kids to look at it and see if there is a clue in the text which tells them why her art had changed. I chose the latter,” she explains.
Allured by art
Anita doesn’t consider herself an ‘art person’. But when she saw Amrita’s Group of Three Girls, she was curious. It was only when she began the spadework for the book did she realise that Amrita was a tough artist to write about, especially for children.
The fact that so little is known about a great artist — that she had an exotic life and reached a tragic end at a young age — pushed her to present a book on her intense life in art. “In the 28 short years that Amrita lived, she left us with about 175 paintings. It’s no mean feat. So why not talk about all the experiences she drew to herself? She was travelling to places all over India and Europe to look at art. So, I wanted to talk about how she worked on her craft, how she strived to accomplish stuff and change her audience’s taste,” details Anita, who had the chance of viewing Amrita’s paintings, which are declared as a national treasure at the NGMA, Delhi.
Learnings from her life
The word ‘rebel’ in the title is a fitting tribute for Amrita, believes Anita. With a supportive set of parents, who just wanted her to grow as an artist, Amrita had been brought up in a culture where being openly frank about how bad somebody else’s art would not get her boycotted socially. And this practice, she followed even after coming to India in 1934.
Though her works presented the colours and contrasts of the Indian society, she wasn’t considered ‘Indian enough’. Art, however, is not bound by boundaries, and perhaps that’s why there is a lot to take away from the book — Amrita’s unending love for art, her determination to keep growing, and never letting money take over passion. “To think about how she was travelling around the country; how she would go to the farthest corners to see sculpture and art. Whenever possible, she went to art. She took her work seriously. She would constantly work on her art; she gave lectures about art, wrote about art and even spoke about it on the radio. She made an effort to engage with viewers and actively tried to change people’s perception of it,” she shares.
Taking a page out of Amrita’s life, Anita has now decided to tread a path that’s quite new to her. “For me, fiction is a challenge; I am not confident as a fiction writer. But I feel somewhere, doing the book on Amrita has emboldened me. Why hold back so much? Why not take that plunge? It is something I am excited about,” she signs off.
A colourful collaboration
In the journey through Amrita’s canvas, Anita collaborated with artist Kalyani Ganapathy. Her illustrations peppered across the books gives readers a visual experience. “What draws a child into a book is the visual layer. So, I feel very committed to the art of a book. Her samples blew my mind. Here was the level of fun and seriousness that I wanted. As we worked together, Kalyani’s style changed to match the book’s content. The first half of the book has a lot of Kalyani’s dazzling illustrations. But as Amrita goes to art school, we start bringing in more of her paintings, and Kalyani withdraws herself a little. Her illustrations are fewer from this point; it’s like she’s clearing the stage for Amrita,” she shares.
Publisher: HarperCollins Children’s Books
Pages: 182
Price: Rs 699