AMRITA SHER-GIL
Amrita Sher-Gil was born on January 30, 1913, in Hungary, to Umrao Singh Sher-Gil Mahithia (a Sikh aristocrat and a scholar of Sanskrit and Persian) and Marie Antoniette Gottessmann (a Hungarian Jewish Opera singer). Considered the pioneer of Indian modern art, Sher-Gil artfully straddled Western and Indian sensibilities in her work. After a failed attempt at abortion, she passed away at the age of twenty-eight on December 5, 1941, only a few days before the opening of her major show in Lahore (then a part of undivided India).
NEWSPAPER READING
When smartphones, social media, and kindles were nonexistent, reading a newspaper, primarily a solitary chore, was also a communal experience. This curation consists of black-and-white shots of people interacting with their daily supply of information from across the world.
TWENTIETH-CENTURY POSTWOMEN
At the onset of World War I, women stepped up to fill the void in the workforce. In America, they had long been rural mail carriers (since at least 1899) but began delivering in urban areas when the country experienced wartime labour shortages. They worked as city letter carriers again during World War II, but most left or were let go after the war ended.
Text source: USPS News Link
LORD EDWIN WEEKS
Lord Edwin Weeks (1849-1903) made two trips to India in his lifetime. Often credited with painting the Victorian Indian subcontinent in exquisite detail, the well-read American artist was also a skilled writer, as evidenced by his travelogue, where he documented the political milieu of the times and expressed his contempt for animal cruelty. Weeks loved being outdoors and was taken by the street scenes in India, a fascination that evolved into the subject of most of his art.
VINCENT VAN GOGH
Upon his arrival in Paris, Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890) took to painting still art, exercising brighter, more complex combinations of colors in his paintings. He leaned toward floral arrangements, painting roses, poppies, chrysanthemums, sunflowers, and carnations, among others. His friends in Paris would often send him bouquets of flowers every week to assist his passion. Van Gogh himself bought cheap arrangements of variegated blossoms from time to time.