Lalitha Lajmi (1932 - 2023)

Watercolour on Paper

22 x 14 Inches

Signed & Dated Lower Right

Year: 2014

Performance has been one of the enduring subjects of Lalitha Lajmi’s art. Throughout her career, the stage and the mask became recurring sites of enquiry—spaces where emotion, restraint, and play converged. In this delicate watercolour, an acrobat lifts a partner above a chequered floor, watched over by silent figures and animals. The scene, poised between theatre and dream, carries the quiet humour and introspection that define Lajmi’s late works.

Her interest in performance was deeply personal. As she once recalled, her daughter Kalpana was drawn to dramatics, and Lajmi would often attend her rehearsals. These experiences, coupled with the cinematic legacy of her brother Guru Dutt, shaped her understanding of the “world of pretend.” “The masks,” she said, “were humane, with feelings and emotions… inspired by cinema and real life.”

The graphite study on the verso reveals her disciplined working process—an intuitive sketch developed directly on the same sheet before the final composition was realised in colour. Painted in her Lokhandwala studio, often at night, works from this period reflect the artist’s lifelong fascination with the fragile balance between illusion and truth. 

Exhibited:  The Mind's Cupboard - A Retrospective of Lalitha Lajmi, 2023. NGMA, Mumbai 

Provenance: The Artist's Estate