Zareena Hashmi, an Indian-American artist and printmaker, is honored in the Google Doodle.
Her contributions to the minimalist art movement are well known.
The Doodle, a work by New York-based guest artist Tara Anand, displays Hashmi’s geometric and minimalistic aesthetic, which is rooted on the themes of home, displacement, limits, and remembrance.
You should be aware of two things: Geometric shapes are used in Zareena Hashmi’s artwork to explore themes like home, displacement, borders, and memory.
You should be aware of two things: Zareena Hashmi uses geometric shapes in her artwork to explore concepts like home, displacement, limits, and memory.
Since she was such a devoted supporter of women and many artists, she has left behind a significant legacy of support.
Zareena Hashmi addresses the world from India: On this day in 1937, in the Indian hamlet of Aligarh, Zareena Hashmi was born.
She spent her early years in a lovely environment before the 1947 Indian-Pakistani partition forced her family to relocate to Karachi, Pakistan.
When she was 21 years old, she got married to a diplomat in the foreign service and embarked on a journey that took her to Bangkok, Paris, and Japan.
While she was residing in Japan, she started to get quite interested in printmaking.
Zareena remained connected to art movements such as modernism and abstraction.
Law and Curatorial Career: In 1977, Hashmi settled in New York City, where she became a prominent lawyer for women and color artists.
She joined the Heresies Collective, a feminist publication that explored the intersection of art, politics, and social justice.
Hashmi also taught at the New York Feminist Art Institute, advocating for equal educational opportunities for women artists.
Among her notable contributions was co-curating the landmark exhibition “Dialectics of Isolation: An Exhibition of Third World Women Artists of the United States” at AIR Gallery in 1980.
The exhibition provided a platform for colorful women artists and showcased a diverse range of works.
Hashmi’s art, characterized by woodcuts and intaglio prints, often featured semi-abstract depictions of homes and cities where she resided.
Her works often incorporated calligraphic elements in her native Urdu and drew inspiration from geometric elements of Islamic art.
Today, people from around the world can admire Zareena Hashmi’s art, which is showcased in prestigious permanent collections such as the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Whitney Museum of American Art, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Sadly, Zareena Hashmi passed away on April 25, 2020, in London due to the complications of Alzheimer’s disease. Nevertheless, her artistic legacy continues to resonate and provide insight.