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15
ONLY BOOK ILLUSTRATION BY SHER-
GIL + EARLY APPRECIATIONS
The only book illustration ever made by Amrita Sher-Gil
and the first essay published on her.
The illustration was drawn by Sher-Gil for her
childhood friend Baldoon Dhingra and reproduced
as a frontispiece for his collection of poems titled
SYMPHONY OF PEACE, published in Cambridge by
Bowes & Bowes in 1938. Dhingra [1909-1979] was
studying there at the time.
The frontispiece shows a woman playing the sitar,
another sitting next to her and two standing listening to
her. Amrita Sher-Gil's full printed signatures are seen at
the bottom right of the drawing. The book has original
green cover and was printed in Cambridge.
pp. ix, 15
The drawing has been reproduced in Vol 2, p. 424, of
"Amrita Sher-Gil: A Self-Portrait in Letters & Writings"
edited by Vivan Sundaram [2010] and is based on Sher-
Gil's 1937 painting 'Veena Players'. Also see Vol 1, p. 76,
of the same book.
Dhingra had this book and two single poems in book
form professionally bound together in cloth witha
leather, gilt-embossed title ticket pasted on front cover
which reads: POEMS BY BALDOON DHINGRA.
The other two books are:
COMES EVER THE DAWN with a frontispiece and 4
text illustrations by SHEIKH AHMED
Dedicated to Svetoslav Roerich
Printed in Lahore at Ripon Press
No date [c. 1930s]
No pagination [pp. 7] with original grey cover bound in.
and
MOUNTAINS with a frontispiece by RAZIA SIRAJ-UD-
DIN
Lahore: Printed at Northern India Printing & Publishing
Co.
1939
pp. 6 with cream coloured cover bound in
p. 7 has an appreciation of SYMPHONY OF PEACE by
Rabindranath Tagore.
Evidently the 3 books were bound together in a limited
number of copies by Dhingra.
In very good condition withmarbled endpapers but the
spine and part of front cover faded.
Size 10 x 6.5 inches
Artist Sheikh Ahmed, under whom artist Krishen
Khanna apprenticed in Lahore in the 1940s, married
Anna Molka Ahmed [1917-1995], a Polish-Russian artist
who subsequently settled down in Pakistan.
Razia Sirajuddin was an art critic and this is her
only known art work. She wrote an introduction to
CHUGHTAI'S PAINTINGS which the great Pakistani
artist first published in 1938.
The only known set ofthese books, similarly bound, is
in the Chughtai Museum in Lahore. See http://blog.
chughtaimuseum.com/?p=2273And a copy of the book with Sher-Gil frontispiece is
with artist Vivan Sundaram. No other copies are known.
THE FIRST CRITICAL ASSESSMENT OFAMRITA SHER-
GIL, WHEN SHE WAS ALL OF 23
THE ART OF AMRITA SHER-GIL by J. P. Foulds
1-page essay with 2 sepia plates in complete issue of
THE FOUR ARTS ANNUAL 1936-37, published in
Calcutta
Editorial Board: A. Coomarswamy and O.C. Gangoly
Hardback with cover picture specially made for the
issue by Nandalal Bose. Upper cover detached.
The 67-page annual has numerous other important
paintings and essays contributed by Abanindranath
Tagore, Rabindranath Tagore, Nicholas Roerich,Sri
Aurobindo, Humayun Kabir and Madame Sophia
Wadia. Plates include those by the three Tagores,
Roerich and Nandalal Bose.
MARG - A MAGAZINE OF ARCHITECTURE & ART
The extremely rare Vol. 1 No. 1 [October 1946] issue of
the Bombay journal with 2 essays on Amrita Sher-Gil:
THE ART OF AMRITA SHER-GIL by Francis Watson [2
pages with 1 sketch]
SOME REMINISCENCES OF AMRITA SHER-GIL by
Baldoon Dhingra [2 pages with 2 sketches]
Rs 75,000-Rs 90,000
$1,155-$1,385