‘TUJHI AAMRI’ (तुझी आम्री)

Understanding the life and times of great Indian artist Amrita Sher-Gil through her letters

An important figure in the art history of India, Amrita Sher-Gil was born on 30 January 1913 in Budapest, Hungary, to Umrao Singh Sher-Gil Majithia, and Marie Antoniette Gottesmann. At a very young age, Amrita began to explore the canvas. Her art was inspired by the social stories and fairy tales of the Green Brothers and Hans Andersons.

In the years 1924-25, Films were her inspiration to paint. The Sher-Gil family arrived in India on 2nd January 1921. On their way to India, they had to take a pit-stop in Paris as Amrita was mesmerized by the legendary art that Paris had to offer and that served a further inspiration for her to paint more. She returned to Paris in 1929 to educate herself in the field of Arts after staying in Mumbai, Delhi, Simla and Lahore for a short while. After returning to India she had extensively studied Ajanta paintings, Rajput, Kangra, Basholi, Moghul Miniature Paintings, she got inspired by these works and introduced a totally different idiom in her art eventually to become a great contribution towards Indian modern art. 

‘Tujhi Aamri’ (तुझी आम्री) is an effort to showcase the short-lived 28 years of the life of Amrita Sher-Gil by the way of her paintings and the letters she wrote to her parents and friends. In this two-act play of 120 mins with 10 min break, the performers are explaining the life and times of Amrita Sher-Gil through the dramatization of the letters along with the audio-visuals. The actor playing ‘Amrita’ will be on stage in the character of Amrita Sher-Gil accompanied by the character of her sister ‘Indu’. This is an effort to engage the people to know Amrita’s work and the thought process that was way ahead of time. The program is based on the books of renowned literary and art scholar Rameshchandra Patankar and artist Vivan Sundaram. The show is also going to be played in Hindi in certain regions of the country.