Lalitha Lajmi
Known for figurative paintings and etchings of men, women and clowns, and for candid self portraits shaped by psychoanalysis.
Photograph: Suhas Bahulkar, Deepak Ghare, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
- Born
- 1932
- Died
- 2023
- Birthplace
- Calcutta (Kolkata)
- Medium
- Oil painting, Etching, Watercolour
Lalitha Lajmi, also spelled Lalita, was an Indian painter born in Calcutta in 1932. She was largely self taught and later enrolled at the Sir J. J. School of Art in Mumbai to complete a master's degree in art. She began painting seriously in the 1960s and held her first solo exhibition at the Jehangir Art Gallery in Mumbai in 1961.
Her early work was largely autobiographical, and later work explored relations between men and women and between mothers and daughters. Her figures include women, children and clowns, and she drew on Durga and Kali imagery. She received the Bombay Art Society Award for etching in 1977 and a Government of India Junior Fellowship from 1979 to 1983. Her work is held by the National Gallery of Modern Art and the British Museum. She died in 2023, soon after a retrospective at the National Gallery of Modern Art in Mumbai.
A life, dated
AB / TIMELINE
- 1932
Born on 17 October in Calcutta.
- 1961
Held her first solo exhibition at the Jehangir Art Gallery, Mumbai.
- 1977
Received the Bombay Art Society Award for etching.
- 1979
Began a Government of India Junior Fellowship that ran until 1983.
- 1985
Had two etchings selected for the India Festival in the United States.
- 2014
Exhibited at the Jehangir Art Gallery in January.
- 2023
Her retrospective The Mind's Cupboard opened at the National Gallery of Modern Art, Mumbai.
- 2023
Died on 13 February, aged 90.
Held in public collections
AB / COLLECTIONS
- National Gallery of Modern Art, New Delhi and Mumbai
- British Museum, London
- Lalit Kala Akademi, New Delhi
- Chandigarh Museum
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Works from the house
AB / WORKS
Landscape, nature & trees
The golden tree and the white bull
Chandra Morkonda. A great tree stands against a vermilion ground, its leaves shaped in blue and veined in gold, each a small tree in itself, set over a field of ringed and patterned colour.
Abstract
Vermilion rising through ultramarine
Prakash Bal Joshi. A square field worked in ultramarine, violet and teal, with a vermilion form rising through the centre and two dark verticals standing before it.
Devotional & narrative
Krishna and the serpent in lapis and gold
Ramesh Gorjala. A turquoise face in profile, the tilak white against it, looks quietly out of the canvas.
Abstract
Embrace in two blues
Sanjeev Sonpimpare. Two rounded figures, one in deep ultramarine and one in pale cornflower blue, hold each other in an embrace; a smaller dark-blue form nestles against the pale figure's sh.
All works Abstract Figures Devotional Landscape Ravi Varma Press stones