16 Facts About Srimati Lal

Srimati Priyadarshini Lal was an Indian artist, poet, writer, art critic, art authenticator and curator.

Srimati Lal held over twenty exhibitions of her work internationally.

Srimati Lal was the author of three books of poetry: The Window, Six Poems and The Warriors: I Guerrieri, published in English and Italian.

Srimati Lal published an anthology of Indo-Anglian writers dedicated to Purushottama Lal, Flowers For My Father: Tributes to P Lal.

Srimati Lal 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.

Srimati Lal was the gold medallist in the Bachelor of Arts program in English Literature at Presidency University, where she was the Ishan Scholar.

Srimati Lal was an authenticator and authority on Indian Contemporary Art.

Srimati Lal was involved in detailed visual and textual documentations of Indian indigenous art, crafts, and design.

Srimati Lal 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.

In 2004, Srimati Lal was among various Indian artists invited by the Genesis Art Gallery in Kolkata to produce a modern interpretation of the Mona Lisa by Leonardo da Vinci.

Srimati Lal's contemporary version was a work of digital art, which placed the image of Mona Lisa on a series of computer screens receding into one another.

Srimati 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.

Srimati Lal died at the age of 60 years, on 17 November 2019.

Srimati Lal met the modern artist Francis Newton Souza in 1993 and was his mistress in his final years.

Srimati Lal organized his funeral when he died in 2002.

In 2008, Srimati Lal married Jit Kumar, an art-photographer, photo-journalist and documentary film-maker.