Srimati Lal

Srimati Priyadarshini Lal (1959 – 2019) was an Indian artist, poet, writer, art critic, art authenticator and curator. She held over twenty exhibitions of her work internationally. She was the author of three books of poetry: The Window (Writers Workshop, 1986), Six Poems (London, 1997) She published an anthology of Indo-Anglian writers dedicated to Purushottama Lal, Flowers For My Father: Tributes to P. Lal.

Early life and education

Srimati Lal was born in Kolkata. She was the daughter of Purushottama Lal, the founder of Writers Workshop as well as a renowned poet and transcreator of the Mahabharata, and his wife Shyamasree Devi. Her elder brother was Ananda Lal.

She studied at Loreto House. She was the gold medallist in the Bachelor of Arts program in English Literature at Presidency University, where she was also the Ishan Scholar. Her dissertation for her Liberal Arts program Film as a Narrative Form at Western Maryland College (since renamed as McDaniel College) entitled 'The Film Vision of Satyajit Ray', was granted a High First and Magna Cum Laude status by Prof. William Cipolla, Dean of Film Studies at New York University.

Career Lal conducted media interviews with various Bengali cultural figures, including Satyajit Ray and Vikram Seth.

She was an authenticator and authority on Indian Contemporary Art. As an artist herself, Lal evolved an individual style which juxtaposed her creative writings and poetry with her art. Tagore, Khalil Gibran, Blake, Dante Gabriel Rossetti and the Scroll-Patachitra painters and indigenous folk-artists of India were some of her major inspirations.

Lal was involved in detailed visual and textual documentations of Indian indigenous art, crafts, and design. She taught art and craft at Bengal's ashrams and worked as a designer, a calligraphist, and an illustrator of books of poetry and fiction, including Dragons by Kewlian Sio; The Saffron Cat, The Magic Mango Tree, The Mahabharata and The Three Riddles by her father P. Lal; The Window and The Warriors by herself; and several other publications.

As an art critic writing weekly art columns since the 1980s, Lal contributed articles on contemporary art to newspapers and journals, such as the Times of India, Indian Express, Hindustan Times, The Telegraph, The Pioneer, Tehelka, Seminar, Art Etc., The Statesman, The Asian Age, SUNDAY Magazine, Poetry Chain, Confluence of London, and Friday Gurgaon.

Lal held a major retrospective of twenty years of her paintings and poetry at London's Nehru Centre in June 2006, where her collector's-edition illustrated volume of poetry and paintings, The Warriors: I Guerrieri was formally released. and was his mistress in his final years. She organized his funeral when he died in 2002. In 2008, Lal married Jit Kumar, an art-photographer, photo-journalist and documentary film-maker. They lived and worked in India.