Lalitha Lajmi (1932 - 2023)

Oil on Canvas

48 x 36 Inches

Year - 1997

This work belongs to Lalitha Lajmi’s pivotal middle phase, when she returned to oil on canvas after years immersed in printmaking. During this period, she began translating the emotional and psychological tension of her etched figures into richly chromatic, painterly form.

Lajmi once recalled, “I sold my first oil to a German archaeologist for 100 rupees and my drawings were for 15.” The recollection captures the persistence that underpinned her long practice — working late into the night after teaching through the day, sustained by quiet conviction rather than recognition.

The composition reveals one of her most persistent motifs — the mask. The blue figure, poised beside the seated woman, holds a mask delicately in hand, suggesting an encounter between the hidden and the revealed. Rather than a literal theatre, the scene unfolds as a quiet psychological drama — rendered through gesture, colour, and gaze.

The saturated palette and layered brushwork heighten this inner intensity. Painted at a time when Lajmi was working late into the night in her Lokhandwala home, the work bridges the emotional charge of her earlier oils and etchings with the contemplative restraint of her later watercolours.

Provenance - The Artist's Estate