Lalitha Lajmi (1932 - 2023)

14 Prints(Edition 1/20)

"Death Reading a Book of Poems" Year - 1977 9.5 x 9.5 In.

"Performers" Year - 1995 8.5 x 10 In.

"Syphony of my Tree" Year - 2012 11 x 7.5 In.

"Untitled" Year - 1985 13.5 x 9.5 In.

"The Dreamer" Year - 1992 12 x 8 In.

"The Three Masks" Year - 1973 7.5 x 10 In.

"Clown Family" Year - 2012 12.5 x 6.5 In.

"Dream of a Mask" Year - 1975 10 x 13 In.

"Untitled" Year - 1995 10.5 x 5 In.

"Masks & Birds" Year - 1974 7 x 9.5 In.

"Performer" Year - 1984 8.5 x 10 In.

"Race of the Masks" Year - 1974 12.5 x 9 In.

"Man and Woman" Year - 1984 7.5 x 9 In.

"The Dreamer" Year - 1992 10 x 6.5 In.

"Performer" Year - 1995 10 x 5.5 In.

Signed & Dated Lower Right

This portfolio brings together fourteen etchings spanning four decades of Lalitha Lajmi’s printmaking practice — from The Three Masks (1973) and Death Reading a Book of Poems (1977) to Performer (1984), Man and Woman (1984), and Clown Family (2012). Together, they trace her evolution from the early theatre-inspired imagery of the 1970s to later introspective works shaped by dream and memory.

In 1973, while teaching at two South Bombay schools, Lajmi began attending evening classes at Sir J. J. School of Art. “At first, I wasn’t serious about printmaking,” she recalled, “but our professor insisted we do linocuts, woodcuts, and then etching.” The medium soon became central to her practice. Lacking proper facilities, she converted her Colaba home into a modest studio, adapting domestic materials — nitric acid, a gas stove, and tubs of cold water — to create her own prints.

Her imagery draws upon theatre, cinema, and psychoanalysis: the mask and performer recurring as symbols of inner life, while the skull and dreamer evoke mortality and reflection. These works also mark her lifelong dialogue with performance — shaped by her daughter Kalpana’s interest in theatre and her own search for emotional truth.

Many of these etchings travelled in her 1983 ICCR-supported exhibition across West and East Germany, and her prints are now held in the National Gallery of Modern Art, the CSMVS Mumbai, and the British Museum.

Provenance - The Artist's Estate