The Picasso of India: Amrita Sher-Gil exhibit opens in Drents Museum
The long-awaited exhibit of paintings by Amrita Sher-Gil (1913-1941), often described as the Picasso of India, opened in the Drents Museum in Assen on Thursday. The exhibition “Europe is Picasso’s, India is Mine” features nearly 50 paintings and drawings by the Hungarian-Indian artist and will be in the Assen museum until September 20.
This is the first-ever exhibition of Sher-Gil’s work in the Netherlands and the first in Europe in nearly 20 years. The Drents Museum described her as “the founder of modern Indian art.” The name of the exhibit is based on a Sher-Gil quote: “Europe belongs to Picasso, Matisse, Braque, and many others. India belongs only to me.”
The paintings and drawings are on loan from the National Gallery of Modern Art in New Delhi, which holds the largest and most complete collection of Sher-Gil’s work. The paintings are considered national heritage and therefore rarely leave India.
“It is a momentous occasion that this long-awaited premiere in the Netherlands can finally take place and that we can introduce the Dutch to the fantastic artist Amrita Sher-Gil,” said Drents Museum director Robert van Langh.
“She lived for only 28 years, but left behind an impressive and influential oeuvre in which modern European painting merges with Indian colors, themes, and stories,” the museum wrote. “The exhibition showcases her development, from her Parisian period to the works in which she captures the power and beauty of daily life in India.”
Sher-Gil’s artworks will be on display in the Drents Museum until September 20.
The exhibition was originally scheduled to open on March 22, but was delayed due to the war in Iran, which started a few weeks earlier. The Indian Ministry of Culture postponed the transport of the artworks due to “current geopolitical tensions,” NOS reported
The Drents Museum worked for six years to bring the Sher-Gil exhibition to the Netherlands. When the art was delayed, 23 Dutch museums stepped in to make an alternative exhibition possible.
This is also the first exhibit involving another country’s national heritage in the Drents Museum after Romanian artifacts were stolen from the museum in January 2025. Three men are on trial for stealing the golden helmet of Cotofenesti and three gold bracelets, which were on loan to the Drents Museum from Romania for an exhibition.
The Dacian treasures were missing for over a year when the Dutch authorities recovered the helmet and two of the bracelets in April of this year, after making a deal with the suspects in the heist.
