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Jhumpa Lahiri

National Portrait Gallery

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Object Details

Artist
Raymond Elman, born 1945
Sitter
Jhumpa Lahiri, born 11 Jul 1967
Exhibition Label
Born London, England
In recalling her father’s warning that a writing life was not a secure one, Jhumpa Lahiri wrote, “I listen to him, and at the same time I have learned not to listen, to wander to the edge of the precipice and leap.” Her first book, Interpreter of Maladies, won the Pulitzer Prize in 2000. As a child growing up in Rhode Island, Lahiri remembers the important role that books and stories played in her visual and psychic landscape. Her father, a librarian and later a professor, filled the house with books. Her grandfather’s vibrant storytelling on her first visit to India contributed to a passion for reading. Later, novels became a way of “trespassing” on the American culture that was foreign to her immigrant parents.
Artist Raymond Elman chose to portray Lahiri in by the sea in Cape Cod, a setting that he describes as “universal.”
Credit Line
National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; gift of the artist
2012
Object number
NPG.2012.85
Restrictions & Rights
Usage conditions apply
Copyright
© Raymond Elman
Type
Mixed Media
Medium
Photograph enhanced with oil pigment on paper adhered to canvas
Dimensions
Stretcher: 101.6 × 152.4cm (40 × 60")
Place
United States\Massachusetts\Barnstable\Wellfleet
See more items in
National Portrait Gallery Collection
Alternate Title
"Rock in the Wind" Jhumpa Lahiri
National Portrait Gallery
Topic
Costume\Jewelry\Necklace
Exterior\Waterscape\Seascape
Costume\Jewelry\Bracelet
Costume\Jewelry\Watch\Wrist watch
Jhumpa Lahiri: Female
Jhumpa Lahiri: Literature\Writer
Jhumpa Lahiri: Pulitzer Prize
Portrait
Record ID
npg_NPG.2012.85
Usage of Metadata (Object Detail Text)
Usage conditions apply
GUID (Link to Original Record)
http://n2t.net/ark:/65665/sm4cd80cfc0-cc8d-4a65-8bf8-a9078494d97d

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