Amrita Sher-Gil’s painting “The Story Teller” has become the most expensive work of an Indian artist ever, a title earlier held by Sayed Haider Raza’s “Gestation”.
Key points
- The 1937 artwork fetched a whopping Rs 61.8 crore at Saffronart’s “Evening Sale: Modern Art” in New Delhi.
- Hungarian-Indian painter Sher-Gil is known as one of the greatest avant-garde painters of the early 20th century.
- The dominant subjects for the eminent artist were women.
- The painting was first exhibited at Sher-Gil’s successful solo exhibition at Faletti’s Hotel, Lahore, in November 1937.
- Her other well-known portraits of women include “Three Girls”, “Women on the Charpai”, “Hill Women”, and “Young Girls”.
- Born to an Indian father and a Hungarian mother on January 30, 1913, in Budapest, Hungary, Sher-Gil came to be known as one of the greatest avant-garde women artists for her oeuvre.
- In 1921, the Sher-Gil family returned to India and settled in Shimla. It was there that she honed her observational skills, capturing the essence of those around her through meticulous sketches.
- She died at the young age of 28 in 1941.
- In 1976, she was declared one of India’s nine “National Art Treasure” artists by the Archaeological Survey of India.
