New York
The Museum of Modern Art
Home is a Foreign Place, 1999 · complete framed portfolio · object 1371.2009.1–36
View museum record ↗︎
Institutional collections
Where the work lives
Zarina’s work is held and interpreted by museums, libraries, foundations, archives, and private collections around the world. This page follows those works into distinct institutional settings while keeping the evidence for each destination clear.
New York
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Letters from Home, 2004 · object 2013.578a–k
View museum record ↗︎
Washington, DC
National Gallery of Art
Homes I Made / A Life in Nine Lines, 1997 · accession 2022.7.1.1–10
View museum record ↗︎Artwork images open the corresponding page on this site. Museum-record links identify the institution’s own holding.
A wider view
Collections as part of the work’s history
Where an artwork lives affects how it is encountered: as a complete portfolio, an artist’s book, a sculpture, an archival trace, or part of a regional and international history of modern art.
Collection studies
Four ways of reading Zarina in a collection
Selected institutions reveal how individual holdings open onto larger questions of home, language, material, and displacement.
New Delhi
Kiran Nadar Museum of Art
Lines, routes, and remembered places
KNMA’s collection pages name The Golden Route, Delhi-I, Untitled, and Untitled (Village). Seen together, the works move from cartographic passage to the intimate scale of a settlement—geography made personal through incision, repetition, and paper.
The Golden Route · Delhi-I · Untitled · Untitled (Village)View collection record ↗︎Dubai
Ishara Art Foundation and the Prabhakar Collection
Home held in image and language
Home is a Foreign Place and Tasbih bring two of Zarina’s most enduring structures into the collection: the house as a vessel for memory, and counting as a meditative passage through time. Ishara’s own emblem takes its geometry from Sky, one of the portfolio’s thirty-six signs.
Home is a Foreign Place, 1999 · Tasbih, 2011View collection record ↗︎Philadelphia
Philadelphia Museum of Art
A portfolio kept whole
The museum holds the complete These Cities Blotted into the Wilderness portfolio. Preserving the sequence keeps its cities in relation: not isolated maps, but a field of places marked by violence, distance, and the persistence of Urdu names.
These Cities Blotted into the Wilderness, 2003 · complete portfolioView collection record ↗︎Washington, DC
Smithsonian American Art Museum
The house as a portable architecture
House of Many Rooms turns the plan of a dwelling into four cast-paper elements. Its rooms can be read as remembered interiors, but also as a structure that can be carried, rearranged, and remade when home is no longer fixed to one address.
House of Many Rooms, 1993 · multi-part workView collection record ↗︎Across institutions
What collections make visible
Portfolios remain sequences
At MoMA, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, the National Gallery of Art, Philadelphia, and Women’s Studio Workshop, complete or multi-part works preserve the movement between sheets. Meaning accumulates through order, pause, and return.
Paper becomes structure
Princeton’s folded paper sculpture, Saint Louis’s cast-paper Steps, and Minneapolis’s wooden Tasbih show that Zarina’s practice cannot be contained by printmaking alone. Paper, wood, metal, and thread become ways of giving memory physical weight.
Collections create new readings
A work changes as it enters different institutional conversations: American art, South Asian modernism, artists’ books, Islamic visual culture, or the history of print. The directory keeps those distinct contexts visible rather than reducing them to a single list.
Reading the directory
Four kinds of public record
Object record
A museum or library page identifies an individual work and its accession or catalogue number.
Collection resource
An institutional artist or catalogue resource is available, without a single object page used here.
Institutional context
An institution-specific catalogue, exhibition, or collection page is available where no individual object page is used.
Foundation / collection context
A foundation or private collection publishes artist, work, or installation documentation.
Collections directory
Institutions by region
This is a selected, evolving directory rather than a catalogue raisonné. Every inherited institution remains visible, with the strongest public destination currently available.
Region
United States
01Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, ILObject recordRetracing the Steps II, 2012 · accession 2013.182.2↗︎02Delaware Art Museum, Wilmington, DEInstitutional contextZarina exhibition history↗︎03Hammer Museum, University of California at Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CAObject recordDividing Line, 2001 · accession 2008.10.1↗︎04Hessel Museum of Art, Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, NYCollection resourceZarina is represented in the permanent CCS Bard collection↗︎05Joel and Lila Harnett Museum of Art, University of Richmond, Richmond, VAInstitutional contextMuseum and collection overview↗︎06Library of Congress, Washington, DCObject recordBlossom House, 1985 · call number FP 3 - RBPW, no. 1831↗︎07Menil Collection, Houston, TXObject recordUntitled, 1979 · accession 2019-18↗︎08Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NYObject recordLetters from Home, 2004 · object 2013.578a–k↗︎09Mills College Art Museum, Oakland, CAInstitutional contextZarina exhibition and publication context↗︎10Minneapolis Institute of Art, Minneapolis, MNObject recordTasbih, 2016 · acquired 2022; the collection also holds Homes I Made / A Life in Nine Lines↗︎11Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, TXObject recordHome is a Foreign Place, 1999 · object 2012.466.1–.36↗︎12Museum of Modern Art, New York, NYObject recordHome Is a Foreign Place, 1999 · object 1371.2009.1–36↗︎13National Gallery of Art, Washington, DCObject recordHomes I Made / A Life in Nine Lines, 1997 · accession 2022.7.1.1–10↗︎14New York Public Library, New York, NYInstitutional contextResearch catalogue↗︎15Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, PAObject recordThese Cities Blotted into the Wilderness, 2003 · complete portfolio · object 2020-144-1–20↗︎16Princeton University Art Museum, Princeton, NJObject recordUntitled, circa 2002 · paper sculpture · object 2019-352↗︎17Saint Louis Art Museum, Saint Louis, MOObject recordSteps, 1981 · cast paper with black pigment and aluminum powder · object 324:2020↗︎18San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, CAObject recordBeyond the Stars, The Ten Thousand Things II, and Tasbih · in the collection↗︎19Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DCObject recordHouse of Many Rooms, 1993 · object 2014.42A–D↗︎20Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, NYObject recordUntitled, 1977 · accession 2010.32↗︎21Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NYObject recordRemains of the City, Dividing Line, Cage, and Wall · in the collection↗︎22Women’s Studio Workshop, Rosendale, NYObject recordTen Woodcuts by Zarina: Based on Urdu Proverbs, 1991 · artist’s book collection↗︎23Yale University Library, New Haven, CTInstitutional contextLibrary catalogue↗︎
Region
Europe
01Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris, FranceCollection resourceBibliothèque nationale de France catalogue search for Zarina↗︎02Tate Modern, London, EnglandCollection resourceTate artist page and video resource↗︎03Victoria and Albert Museum, London, EnglandObject recordBlossom House, circa 1985 · accession E.334-1986↗︎
Region
Middle East
01Guggenheim Abu Dhabi, Abu Dhabi, United Arab EmiratesInstitutional contextCollection programme and exhibition context↗︎02Ishara Art Foundation and the Prabhakar Collection, Dubai, United Arab EmiratesFoundation / collection contextHome is a Foreign Place, 1999, and Tasbih, 2011 · published collection records↗︎03Jordan National Gallery of Fine Arts, Amman, JordanInstitutional contextMuseum collection overview↗︎
Region
South Asia
01Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya—Jehangir NicholsonObject recordCage, 1970 · documented in the Jehangir Nicholson collection↗︎02Devi Art Foundation, New Delhi, IndiaFoundation / collection contextFoundation presentation documents sheets from Letters from Home, 2004↗︎03Kiran Nadar Museum of Art, New Delhi, IndiaCollection resourceThe Golden Route, Delhi-I, Untitled, and Untitled (Village) appear in the museum’s collection↗︎04National Gallery of Modern Art, New Delhi, IndiaObject recordCities · accession 16328 · woodcut on Japanese paper↗︎05Samdani Art Foundation, Dhaka, BangladeshFoundation / collection contextCollection installation documentation names Zarina↗︎
Region
East Asia
01Burger Collection, Hong Kong, People’s Republic of ChinaFoundation / collection contextCollection artist index names Zarina↗︎02Fukuoka Asian Art Museum, Fukuoka, JapanInstitutional contextZarina exhibition record↗︎03Japan Foundation, Tokyo, JapanInstitutional contextArts and cultural-exchange programme↗︎