Zarina Hashmi

Zarina Hashmi (1937-2020)

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Zarina Hashmi was born and lived in Aligarh till she got married and started traveling across the globe, since her husband was in the foreign services. Through her travels she evoked her memories of her childhood home, her family and the cities that she lived in her works.

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Zarina Hashmi did not study art, but she studied mathematics at Aligarh Muslim University, which was quite rare for women during those years. She started studying woodblock printing in while in in Bangkok, and subsequently in  Tokyo. She also went on to study the intaglio technique with S.W. Hayter at Atelier – 17, Paris.

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Another aspect that has defined her work style is her love for flying! Quite the trail blazer, she had flying lessons in Delhi, which opened her world to topology. This too can be seen in a substantial part of her work. While a larger part of her repertoire are prints, she also made some exquisite sculptures in wood, and paper relief works.

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Zarina chose to live in New York after he husband’s untimely death, when he was just 45 years old. However, with failing health, she chose to live with her sister’s children in London. Zarina Hashmi’s works have been exhibited at numerous venues internationally, including representing India at the 2011 Venice Biennale, and her retrospective exhibition entitled Zarina: Paper Like Skin was presented at the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles in 2012, and at the Guggenheim, New York, and the Art Institute of Chicago in 2013.