The Self in Making Curation, the publication accompanies the year-long curation of Amrita Sher-Gil’s self-portraits at the Kiran Nadar Museum of Art in 2013. Opened to the public on the occasion of the pioneering modern artist’s centennial, The Self in Making was the first in the tripartite exhibition Difficult Loves. One of the pioneers in the modern Indian art movement, Amrita Sher-Gil’s art amalgamates influences of the East and the West, owing to her mixed heritage and upbringing between India and Hungary. Women feature prominently in her art and she paints them with the subjectivity of their experiences, often becoming her own muse. 

Documenting Sher-Gil’s journey as a self-taught young artist finding her own, beginning with bold pencil sketches to her mastery of oil on canvas, from getting in touch with herself as an adolescent to proclaiming her sensuality with authority as an adult, the volume carries a curatorial note by the Director and Chief Curator of the museum, Roobina Karode and an extensive essay by the art historian Rakhee Balaram. They explore how Sher-Gil was mindful of being the muse and the maker, which she then distilled into her practice, to make the viewer aware of her consciousness.

Edited: Roobina Karode
Publisher: Kiran Nadar Museum of Art
Pages: 113 pages
ISBN: 9788192803708