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“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.

Amrita Sher-Gil – Self portrait at the age of 18 (1931).  UPDATE: IT SOLD FOR £1,762,500

A 1931 self-portrait by Amrita Sher-Gil, depicting one of India’s most important modern artists at the age of 18, comes up at Christie’s in London on June 10. This is the first painting by the artist ever to be offered in London, and one of only eight canvases by Sher-Gil to be offered at auction. It is the only known profile self portrait by the artist. It is estimated at £1-1.8 million.

Born in Budapest in 1913 to a Hungarian mother and an India father Sher-Gil was a tour de force in the landscape of modernism in British India. In her brief 28 years she lived between India, Hungary and France. She painted the life of people and her surroundings with an intensity that remains unparalleled in modern Indian art. In Paris she was elected as an associate of the Grand Salon, a rare honor at the time for a young, foreign artist, as a result of the power of her portraits.  Most of her work is in the collection of the National Gallery of Modern Art in New Delhi.  This self portrait is one of her undiscovered paintings and it has remained in France since the time it was painted.

UPDATE: IT SOLD FOR £1,762,500