Meet Amrita’s ‘Little girl in blue’

Shailaja Khanna

Amrita Sher-Gil is one of India’s most celebrated painters, but her tragic early demise at the age of 28 robbed the world of the fruition of an immense inborn talent. 

Amrita lived in Summer Hill, Shimla, for several years; she died in Lahore in 1941. Shimla saw the burgeoning of her inborn talent, though both her parents were extremely artistic. After her training in Paris, she came back to the family home in Shimla, where she painted. However, during her time in Shimla, her talent was not really recognised.

Apparently, she liked Shimla. She and her sister Indira took part in plays at the Gaiety Theatre and were regularly spotted walking down the Mall. Apparently, according to the young girls in Shimla then, Amrita was extremely beautiful, carried herself very well and wore saris with great élan. This was despite having spent many years in Europe wearing only Western clothes. Her Hungarian mother Marie Antoinette – “Madame” to her circle — also enjoyed living in Shimla and was an active member of its aristocratic society, throwing elegant parties. Her brother, the celebrated Hungarian painter Erwin Bakhtai also completed a few of his works whilst in Shimla, staying with his sister and brother-in-law; a few are even now part of private collections in India. Coincidentally, the subject of one of Amrita’s early works, painted in 1934, called The Little Girl in Blue was another Shimla resident Lalit Kaur Mann. Her family nickname was Babbette (wrongly misspelt “Babit” by Sotheby’s). This painting which was last seen at an exhibition in Lahore in 1937 has surfaced now and is going to be auctioned by Sotheby’s later this month. It’s making waves as it has resurfaced after years, and as the “subject” (Babbette) is still alive to see her painting.

Apparently, the painting was not commissioned; Lady Buta Singh, Lalit Kaur’s mother, was a relation by marriage and close family friend of Amrita’s father Sardar Umrao Singh Sher-Gil, of the famous Sikh Majithia family (Majithia House in Chhota Shimla was the residence of Amrita’s uncle Sir Sunder Singh Majithia; it now houses the offices below the Secretariat). Both families had residences in Amritsar and it appears that the sittings for the painting took place at Nowshera House in Amritsar in the winter of 1934. The young Lalit, then only 8-year-old, recalls feeling bored at having to sit still for the sessions. It seems when the painting was complete, Lady Buta Singh did not much like it, saying the painting did not do justice to her daughter, who was acclaimed as a beauty even as a child. At the time, Amrita was not the renowned painter she is today. So, Amrita kept the painting herself, as part of her collection. The expected price it should fetch at the auction is pegged at between Rs 12-15 crore, which leads one to suspect Lady Buta Singh. Had she been alive today, she would have regretted her decision of not acquiring the painting!

Lalit Kaur Mann, who has spent part of her entire life in Shimla (her parental home was Rose Cottage in Chhota Shimla, her marital home is Westfield, Chhota Shimla) shared that Shimla was even her mother Lady Buta Singh’s home (her father Sir Jogendra Singh lived in Aira Holme, Chhota Shimla). Sir Jogendra Singh and Sardar Umrao Singh Sher-Gil were close friends, and even though the latter lived in Summer Hill, they met frequently when they were in Shimla, which was for 8-9 months of the year. Truly, the Shimla of that time epitomised elegant leisurely living, conducive to scholarship and a pursuit of the arts.