Umrao Singh Sher-Gil, Seated in an armchair: self-portrait, c.1932, 11 Rue Bassano, Paris, France, Glass plate negative
Courtesy: The Sher-Gil Sundaram Archives/PHOTOINK
18 Nov 2026
A 'Cosmopolitan Self': Umrao Singh Sher-Gil in Paris
Lecture École des modernités
Paris, France
The École des modernités
Between 1890 and 1948, Umrao Singh Sher Gil (1870-1954) a philosopher, Sanskritist, Persianist and father of India’s greatest modernist painter Amrita Sher-Gil, produced a remarkable body of photographic self-portraits. The photographs, usually very small were always of himself in aristocratic-bourgeois settings, which ranged from cities in Europe and India. This lecture will focus on the time he spent in Paris, and how through his various acts of self-fashioning, he contested conventional notions and understandings of cosmopolitanism, national identity, colonial subjectivity and practices of the self.
Shanay Jhaveri is the Barbican’s Head of Visual Arts. Previously, he was Associate Curator of International Art from 2016 – 2022 at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York where he was responsible for collection building, working on special projects, commission and delivering exhibitions. Since joining the Barbican, Jhaveri has launched a new series of site-specific commissions at the Barbican and has opened a new gallery space within the Centre which the critically lauded exhibition series Encounters: Giacometti was hosted. His other curatorial projects at the Barbican include Lucy Raven: Rounds (2025) and The Imaginary Institution of India: Art 1975-1998 (2024) which will have a US tour in 2027-28. Jhaveri's next curated exhibition will be Dayanita Singh opening in 2027.
Umrao Singh Sher-Gil, Seated in an armchair: self-portrait, c.1932, 11 Rue Bassano, Paris, France, Glass plate negative
Courtesy: The Sher-Gil Sundaram Archives/PHOTOINK
Portrait of Shanay Jhaveri by Daniele Fummo
Lecture by Shanay Jhaveri, Head of Visual Arts at the Barbican Centre,
Wednesday, 18 November, 2026, at 6:30 p.m. (UTC+2),
Giacometti Lab (9 rue Victor Schœlcher, Paris) and live on YouTube,
Lecture in English.
Free event, registration required.