When Nalini Malani was 12, and visiting Tokyo with her parents in the 1950s, her mother told her that they would have difficulty ordering food in a restaurant, since few people at the time spoke English. Malani wondered what they would do. She decided she would draw what the family wanted. “I learned to draw well, just eggs and shrimp and chicken and different vegetables,” she said. The shopkeepers were amused.
“Women from Pakistan and India have led the way in feminism for global artists,” he said. “She is both subtle and sophisticated. She seems fearless.” Her works have garnered attention worldwide, most recently in a solo exhibition that concluded last year at The National Gallery in London, with works in the permanent collections of prestigious institutions such as New York’s Museum of Modern Art and the Centre Pompidou in France.