1937–2020

Memories of Zarina

Zarina died peacefully in London on 25 April 2020, surrounded by family, after living with Alzheimer’s. She lived on her own terms, with a fighting spirit, independence, and wit. Her family remembers that she would want her life celebrated rather than mourned; in her own words, she was “a tough cookie.”

Memorial epigraph

I tried to flyGot lost in the thermalCould never go backHaving lost the place to land.
Zarina, Flight Log, 1987

A life on her own terms

These lines return here deliberately. Zarina described them as her whole biography: a life shaped by movement, the impossibility of return, and the search for a place to land.

Read in its childhood context

Further reading

Recent criticism

2026Structure as Measure: Zarina — Beyond the StarsQuiet Modernism2026Other Worlds of Light: Zarina’s Beyond the StarsKelly Ma · ArtAsiaPacific2026Zarina Brought the World to New YorkAruna D’Souza · Hyperallergic2026Zarina: Beyond the StarsWallace Ludel · The Brooklyn Rail2025Drawing Room: Why Narayan Chandra Biswas Loves Zarina Hashmi’s ArtNoor Anand Chawla · Hindustan Times2024Notes on a Fragment: Zarina’s Dividing LineAnanya Jahanara Kabir · Art History2021Zarina and the Idea of HomeDeepa Bhasthi · ArtReview Asia