Most write-ups on Amrita Sher-Gil have a note on the purported relationship between her and Marie-Louise Chassany.
What I do find odd is that, while people love talking about the contents of her letters and highlighting her sexual preferences, I have never seen anyone identify the two portraits of Marie-Louise Chassagny at the NGMA.
"…I believe that it is impossible to fully transform one’s sexual desires into art, to idealize it and tranquil it through art for a whole life-time this is only a stupid superstition of the feeble brain. Marie Louise was such an abnormal type of woman, we never had anything sexual between us." - Amrita Sher-Gil
A Party at École des Beaux-Arts - Amrita far-right, Marie-Louise partly visible
The first
And Another
A third and a very finely executed charcoal portrait also exists.
While there are many self-portraits of Amrita, there are also portraits of others like Victor Eagan (her husband)
but the presence of at least three portraits of Marie-Louise would indicate a close relationship, whether sexual in nature or not.
Related: Amrita Sher-Gil, Buffaloes (1941)
