“So when she saw me, she went crazy about my hair and absolutely wanted to do my portrait with my hair loose” French art critic Denyse Proutaux explained in a 1931 letter to her partner Phillippe Dyvorne. The resultant re-discovered portrait by Amrita Sher-Gil is the top lot at Christie’s South Asian, Modern and Contemporary Art auction in New York on March 17. “As it was for a competition and she had very little time, I posed almost non-stop for three days, and that’s why I couldn’t write to you as I had promised you. I’ve never known such an amazing girl, you know Phil?” Proutaux wrote. Amrita Sher-Gil was born in Budapest in 1913 to a Hungarian mother and Indian father. Living between Hungary, France and India she painted people and places with an intensity that remains unparalleled in modern Indian art and was elected as an associate of the Grand Salon in Paris in 1933. Sher-Gil died unexpectedly in 1941 in Lahore at the age of 28. Most of her documented work is in the national collection of Modern Art in New Delhi. Portrait of Denyse is estimated at $1.8-$2.5 million.
