Zarina Hashmi, born on July 16, 1937, in the town of Aligarh, India, was a renowned artist celebrated for her contributions to the Minimalism Art movement. Her life took a significant turn during the partition of India in 1947 when her family was displaced and forced to relocate to Karachi, Pakistan.
Hashmi also played a pivotal role in the New York Feminist Art Institute, where she taught and championed equal educational opportunities for female artists. Her curatorial work was groundbreaking as well, co-curating the influential exhibition "Dialectics of Isolation: An Exhibition of Third World Women Artists of the United States" at A.I.R. Gallery in 1980. This exhibition provided a platform for diverse artists, particularly female artists of color.