Zarina Hashmi The Artist
The 1947 Indian partition haunted the lives and works of a generation of artists, including Ms. Hashmi.
The artist Zarina Hashmi gained international recognition for her intaglio and woodcut prints, many of
which featured semi-abstract representations of the homes and cities Zarina Hashmi has lived in. Thanks to Ram Rahman
On April 25 in London, Zarina Hashmi passed away. Zarina Hashmi was an American artist of Indian descent who used sparse imagery, poetic language, and subdued politics to create an emotional and
spiritual guide from the narrative of her nomadic life. She was 82 years old.
Imran Chishti, her nephew, said that problems from Alzheimer’s disease were to blame.
Ms. Hashmi, who preferred to use just her first name professionally, rose to fame for her woodcuts and intaglio prints, many of which featured semi-abstract depictions of the homes and cities Zarina Hashmi
had lived in along with inscriptions in Urdu, a language spoken primarily by Muslims in South Asia. Pakistan’s official national language is (this).
Zarina Hashmi is particularly admired within South Asia as a representative of a now-ex
tinct generation of creatives who were alive during the tragic 1947 partition of the subcontinent along racial and religious lines. Zarina Hashmi felt that this event severed her ties to her roots and haunted her life and work.
The youngest of five children, Zarina Rashid was born on July 16, 1937, in the small Indian town of Aligarh, where her father, Sheikh Abdur Rashid, was a professor at Aligarh Muslim University. Fahmida
Begum, her mother, was a housewife.
Ms. Hashmi spoke about growing up in what Zarina Hashmi called a conventional Muslim home in her 2018 memoir “Directions to My House” (co-written with Sarah Burney). Zarina Hashmi and her older sister
Rani would spend hot months sleeping outside “under the stars and plotting our journeys in life.” Her childhood home’s layout, with its walls enclosing a fragrant garden, began to appear frequently in her
works of art.
With the division of India and the ensuing conflict between Muslims and Hindus, that existence came to an abrupt end. Her father relocated the family to Karachi in the newly created Pakistan for their safety. Ms.
Hashmi was never the same after witnessing bodies dumped in the road while escaping to a refugee camp.
In her biography, Zarina Hashmi stated that these recollections “formed how I think about a lot of things: fear, separation, migration, the people you know, or think you know.”
Zarina Hashmi ultimately made it back to Aligarh, a city close to New Delhi, where Zarina Hashmi graduated with a degree in mathematics, but she would never call it home again.
Zarina Hashmi married Saad Hashmi, a young diplomat in the foreign service, in an arranged marriage when Zarina Hashmi was 21. This was the start of a life spent traveling. She developed an interest in
printmaking while they were stationed in Bangkok in 1958. After a brief stint in New Delhi, where she established acquaintances in the city’s artistic scene, her husband’s employment sent the couple to Paris
in 1963. She engaged herself in European modernism, particularly abstraction, by enrolling in William Stanley Hayter’s Atelier 17 program.
Zarina Hashmi and her husband’s relationship deteriorated over their four years in Paris. Zarina Hashmi essentially lived and traveled alone once she got back to New Delhi. She traveled to Japan in 1974, intending to remain for two weeks, but ended up staying for a year to learn woodblock methods.with Toshi Yoshida in Tokyo.
Zarina Hashmi experimented with printmaking norms throughout this time. Zarina Hashmi did away with color. On bits of wood, she inked grains and textures she had discovered. She cut and perforated the handmade paper’s surface or sculpted it with pulp.
Zarina Hashmi considered relocating to India or Pakistan, where her parents were living at the time, but instead decided to go to New York City, which she had previously visited, after her husband passed away abruptly in 1977. She initially found it challenging to lead a simple life by herself in a tiny loft in the garment area.
Zarina Hashmi stated, “I had very little money, was depressed, and didn’t want to leave my house.” “I felt consumed,”
But over time, primarily as a result of her engagement with the female art movement, Zarina Hashmi was
assimilated into Manhattan’s downtown art scene. She co-edited the “Third World Women Artists” issue of the legendary journal for the Heresies Collective, a group of feminist artists, and lectured at the New
York Feminist Art Institute, which began in 1979 (and dissolved in 1990).
Zarina Hashmi co-organized an exhibition named “Dialectics of Isolation: An Exhibition of Third World Women Artists of the United States” at the A.I.R. Gallery, which was then situated in SoHo, in 1980
alongside Ana Mendieta and Kazuko Miyamoto. (It is currently located in Brooklyn’s Dumbo neighborhood.)
Around this time, Zarina Hashmi started to make the concepts of home and exile a key part of her work. In a 2017 interview with Courtney A. Stewart, a senior research assistant in the department of Islamic art
at the Metropolitan Museum, she declared, “Some people who have come and settled in the United States don’t look back, but I’m not one of them.”
A lot of photographs of houses were almost abstract. The 1981 cast-paper relief “Homecoming” is mainly an aerial image of a courtyard encircled by arches, evoking the courtyard at her childhood home. “I Went
on a Journey III” (1991), a bronze sculpture, is a little home on wheels. The prints in a collection titled “Homes I Made/A Life in Nine Lines” are based on the floor plans of residences that Ms. Hashmi had inhabited starting in 1958.
And in a print series titled “Letters From Home,” Ms. Hashmi layered pictures of her home and the city onto the language of letters her sister Rani had written to her but never forwarded. The letters frequently dealt with grief and family deaths. It’s significant because every letter is written in Urdu script, just as
numerous labels on other prints that serve as identification. In sectarian India, Urdu is steadily losing favor, but for Ms. Hashmi, it identified “home” just as clearly as pictures of maps and homes did.
Zarina Hashmi said to Ms. Stewart, “Language is the biggest loss for me. in particular poetry. I now listen to Urdu poetry being read aloud before bed due to YouTube. I make light of the fact that I’ve lived a life of translation
A significant portion of the Urdu poetry that Ms. Hashmi loved was connected to Sufism, a very fascinating mystical branch of Islam. Later abstract prints by the artist and sculptures in the shape of
prayer beads make clear allusions to it. Zarina Hashmi affirmed, “I do believe in a spiritual life, and I’m not ashamed of it.
Although it took some time for her to gain a sizable American following, interest in her art has grown over the past eight to ten years. She was featured in significant surveys, such as “WACK! Art and the
Feminist Revolution,” presented by the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles in 2007. , and “The Third Mind: American Artists Contemplate Asia 1860-1989” at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York in 2009
“Zarina: Paper Like Skin,” a career retrospective, was staged by the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles in 2012 and toured to the Guggenheim and the Art Institute of Chicago. At the Asian/Pacific/American
Institute at New York University, where Ms. Hashmi served as artist in residence from 2017 to 2018, Ms. Chang and Ms. Hashmi created the survey “Zarina: Dark Roads.” At the Pulitzer Arts Foundation in St. Louis last year, a third performance, titled “Zarina: Atlas of Her World,” was presented.
Ms. Hashmi has held solo shows at Gallery Espace in New Delhi since 2000. She represented India in the 2011 Venice Biennale. In New York, she is represented by Luhring Augustine Gallery.
As an artist, Ms. Hashmi decided not to use her husband’s or father’s names to identify herself. Saima Chishti, her niece, also survives her in addition to her nephew.
In recent years the political scope of Ms. Hashmi’s work has sharpened, in prints that refer to anti-Muslim violence and the plight of persecuted refugees. Even then, in its scale and reflective mood, her art remains
as personal and intimate as a diary. Regret colors the narrative. (“Nobody is left in our house at Aligarh. Rani is gone. My parents are gone. Home has become another foreign place.”) But something like serenity settled in.
The political focus of Ms. Hashmi’s artwork has become more acute in recent years, as seen by prints that discuss anti-Muslim violence and the situation of persecuted refugees. She still creates work that is as
private and personal as a diary in terms of scale and introspective attitude. The story is colored with regret. (“There is no one left in our Aligarh home. Rani has left. They are both deceased. “Home is now another foreign location. But a sort of calmness crept in.
On May 28, 2020, a change was made to this obituary because it incorrectly stated who was in charge of the New York University exhibition “Zarina: Dark Roads”. Instead of Sarah Burney, it was Alexandra Chang and Ms. Hashmi. Also missing from the earlier edition was Ms. Burney’s co-authorship credit on Ms. Hashmi’s autobiography, “Directions to My House.”
Around this time, Zarina Hashmi started to make the concepts of home and exile a key part of her work. In a 2017 interview with Courtney A. Stewart, a senior research assistant in the department of Islamic art
at the Metropolitan Museum, she declared, “Some people who have come and settled in the United States don’t look back, but I’m not one of them.”
A lot of photographs of houses were almost abstract. The 1981 cast-paper relief “Homecoming” is mainly an aerial image of a courtyard encircled by arches, evoking the courtyard at her childhood home. “I Went
on a Journey III” (1991), a bronze sculpture, is a little home on wheels. The prints in a collection titled “Homes I Made/A Life in Nine Lines” are based on the floor plans of residences that Ms. Hashmi had inhabited starting in 1958.
And in a print series titled “Letters From Home,” Ms. Hashmi layered pictures of her home and the city onto the language of letters her sister Rani had written to her but never forwarded. The letters frequently dealt with grief and family deaths. It’s significant because every letter is written in Urdu script, just as
numerous labels on other prints that serve as identification. In sectarian India, Urdu is steadily losing favor, but for Ms. Hashmi, it identified “home” just as clearly as pictures of maps and homes did.
Zarina Hashmi said to Ms. Stewart, “Language is the biggest loss for me. in particular poetry. I now listen to Urdu poetry being read aloud before bed due to YouTube. I make light of the fact that I’ve lived a life of translation
A significant portion of the Urdu poetry that Ms. Hashmi loved was connected to Sufism, a very fascinating mystical branch of Islam. Later abstract prints by the artist and sculptures in the shape of
Although it took some time for her to gain a sizable American following, interest in her art has grown over the past eight to ten years. She was featured in significant surveys, such as “WACK! Art and the
Feminist Revolution,” presented by the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles in 2007. , and “The Third Mind: American Artists Contemplate Asia 1860-1989” at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York in 2009
“Zarina: Paper Like Skin,” a career retrospective, was staged by the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles in 2012 and toured to the Guggenheim and the Art Institute of Chicago. At the Asian/Pacific/American
Institute at New York University, where Ms. Hashmi served as artist in residence from 2017 to 2018, Ms. Chang and Ms. Hashmi created the survey “Zarina: Dark Roads.” At the Pulitzer Arts Foundation in St. Louis last year, a third performance, titled “Zarina: Atlas of Her World,” was presented.
Ms. Hashmi has held solo shows at Gallery Espace in New Delhi since 2000. She represented India in the 2011 Venice Biennale. In New York, she is represented by Luhring Augustine Gallery.
As an artist, Ms. Hashmi decided not to use her husband’s or father’s names to identify herself. Saima Chishti, her niece, also survives her in addition to her nephew.
In recent years the political scope of Ms. Hashmi’s work has sharpened, in prints that refer to anti-Muslim violence and the plight of persecuted refugees. Even then, in its scale and reflective mood, her art remains
as personal and intimate as a diary. Regret colors the narrative. (“Nobody is left in our house at Aligarh. Rani is gone. My parents are gone. Home has become another foreign place.”) But something like serenity settled in.
The political focus of Ms. Hashmi’s artwork has become more acute in recent years, as seen by prints that discuss anti-Muslim violence and the situation of persecuted refugees. She still creates work that is as
private and personal as a diary in terms of scale and introspective attitude. The story is colored with regret. (“There is no one left in our Aligarh home. Rani has left. They are both deceased. “Home is now another foreign location. But a sort of calmness crept in.
On May 28, 2020, a change was made to this obituary because it incorrectly stated who was in charge of the New York University exhibition “Zarina: Dark Roads”. Instead of Sarah Burney, it was Alexandra Chang and Ms. Hashmi. Also missing from the earlier edition was Ms. Burney’s co-authorship credit on Ms. Hashmi’s autobiography, “Directions to My House.”
Around this time, Zarina Hashmi started to make the concepts of home and exile a key part of her work. In a 2017 interview with Courtney A. Stewart, a senior research assistant in the department of Islamic art
at the Metropolitan Museum, she declared, “Some people who have come and settled in the United States don’t look back, but I’m not one of them.”
A lot of photographs of houses were almost abstract. The 1981 cast-paper relief “Homecoming” is mainly an aerial image of a courtyard encircled by arches, evoking the courtyard at her childhood home. “I Went
on a Journey III” (1991), a bronze sculpture, is a little home on wheels. The prints in a collection titled “Homes I Made/A Life in Nine Lines” are based on the floor plans of residences that Ms. Hashmi had inhabited starting in 1958.
And in a print series titled “Letters From Home,” Ms. Hashmi layered pictures of her home and the city onto the language of letters her sister Rani had written to her but never forwarded. The letters frequently dealt with grief and family deaths. It’s significant because every letter is written in Urdu script, just as
numerous labels on other prints that serve as identification. In sectarian India, Urdu is steadily losing favor, but for Ms. Hashmi, it identified “home” just as clearly as pictures of maps and homes did.
Zarina Hashmi said to Ms. Stewart, “Language is the biggest loss for me. in particular poetry. I now listen to Urdu poetry being read aloud before bed due to YouTube. I make light of the fact that I’ve lived a life of translation
A significant portion of the Urdu poetry that Ms. Hashmi loved was connected to Sufism, a very fascinating mystical branch of Islam. Later abstract prints by the artist and sculptures in the shape of
Although it took some time for her to gain a sizable American following, interest in her art has grown over the past eight to ten years. She was featured in significant surveys, such as “WACK! Art and the
Feminist Revolution,” presented by the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles in 2007. , and “The Third Mind: American Artists Contemplate Asia 1860-1989” at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York in 2009
“Zarina: Paper Like Skin,” a career retrospective, was staged by the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles in 2012 and toured to the Guggenheim and the Art Institute of Chicago. At the Asian/Pacific/American
Institute at New York University, where Ms. Hashmi served as artist in residence from 2017 to 2018, Ms. Chang and Ms. Hashmi created the survey “Zarina: Dark Roads.” At the Pulitzer Arts Foundation in St. Louis last year, a third performance, titled “Zarina: Atlas of Her World,” was presented.
Ms. Hashmi has held solo shows at Gallery Espace in New Delhi since 2000. She represented India in the 2011 Venice Biennale. In New York, she is represented by Luhring Augustine Gallery.
As an artist, Ms. Hashmi decided not to use her husband’s or father’s names to identify herself. Saima Chishti, her niece, also survives her in addition to her nephew.
In recent years the political scope of Ms. Hashmi’s work has sharpened, in prints that refer to anti-Muslim violence and the plight of persecuted refugees. Even then, in its scale and reflective mood, her art remains
as personal and intimate as a diary. Regret colors the narrative. (“Nobody is left in our house at Aligarh. Rani is gone. My parents are gone. Home has become another foreign place.”) But something like serenity settled in.
The political focus of Ms. Hashmi’s artwork has become more acute in recent years, as seen by prints that discuss anti-Muslim violence and the situation of persecuted refugees. She still creates work that is as
private and personal as a diary in terms of scale and introspective attitude. The story is colored with regret. (“There is no one left in our Aligarh home. Rani has left. They are both deceased. “Home is now another foreign location. But a sort of calmness crept in.
On May 28, 2020, a change was made to this obituary because it incorrectly stated who was in charge of the New York University exhibition “Zarina: Dark Roads”. Instead of Sarah Burney, it was Alexandra Chang and Ms. Hashmi. Also missing from the earlier edition was Ms. Burney’s co-authorship credit on Ms. Hashmi’s autobiography, “Directions to My House.”
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