Prior to her doctorate, Zehra lived and worked in Bombay, where she was editor of the Visual Art section for Time Out Mumbai and subsequently Assistant Editor at ART India, the country’s premier art journal. She has written for Frieze, London; ArtAsiaPacific, New York, Art Review Asia, London and contributed to various publications on contemporary art by Phaidon. Zehra continues to be a regular contributor to Artforum International, New York. Her writing over the years can be found in a range of publications, but a selection is offered below.

Current Book Projects

  • Art, Money, Power: The New Institutions of Contemporary South Asian Art (provisional title), New Directions in Contemporary Art series, Marcus Verhagen (Series Editor), Lund Humphries, London. Forthcoming 2024.

Books

  • Zehra Jumabhoy & Tan Boon Hui (Eds.), The Progressive Revolution: A Modern Art for a New India, Prestel, New York, 2018
  • F.N. Souza: Black on Black, Grosvenor Gallery, London, 2013. A publication accompanying an exhibition of Souza’s 1960s ‘black paintings’ at Grosvenor Gallery, London, from 8 to 28 October 2013.
    Read
  • Upward Movement: N.S. Harsha, Victoria Miro, London, 2015. A publication to accompany the Indian artist’s solo show at Victoria Miro Mayfair, London, from 27 March to 25 April 2015.
  • The Empire Strikes Back: Indian Art Today, Mark Holborn (Ed.), Random House, London, 2010

Chapters in books

  • “The Brown(ing) Version: F.N. Souza & India” (tentative title) in F.N. Souza, Harper Collins, New Delhi. Forthcoming 2024. 
  • “Making Place for People?: Geeta Kapur, Secular Nationalism & ‘Indian’ art”, Chapter 7, How Secular is Art?: On the Art of Art History in South Asia, Vazira Zamindar and Tapati Guha-Thakurta (Eds.), Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2023, pp. 189-223 Access Book
  • Zehra Jumabhoy and Priyesh Mistry, “Telling Tales: Narrating Nalini Malani”, Nalini Malani, National Gallery, London, Exhi Cat, Will Cooper and Daniel F. Herrmann (Eds.), National Gallery Global/Distributed by Yale University Press, 2022. See
  • “Tilting at Thresholds: P/partition in South Asian Art & Exhibitions” in The 1947 Partition of British India: Forced Migrations and Its Reverberations, Jennifer Leaning and Shubanghi  Bhadada (Eds), Sage Publications, India, pp. 279-313. The project is Harvard University’s publication on South Asian Partitions. Read Chapter 10
  • “Suns of the Soil: Land & Nation in the paintings of S.H. Raza”, Zamin: Homelands in the works of S.H Raza, a publication to accompany Raza’s centenary show at Jehangir Nicholson Art Foundation, Mumbai, from June to July 2022. Published in October 2022.
  • “Of Borders and Brothers: India’s Progressive Artists’ Group & Pakistan”, Group Dynamics—Collectives of the Modernist Period, Lenbachhaus Museum, Munich, Exhi Cat, Editor: Matthias Mühling. Publisher: Hatje Cantz, 2022. Read
  • “Making Britain Browner”, Midnight’s Family: 70 years of Indian Artists in Britain, Exhi. Cat., Ben Uri Research Unit, London, 2020, pp. 6-11
    Read
  • Form & Figure: Bodies of Art of 3 Pakistani Artists, Exhi. Cat., Grosvenor Gallery, London, 2020
    Read
  • “The Look of Love: Desire and the National Imagination”, Hemen Mazumdar: The Last Romantic, SMU, Singapore, 2019. Including essays by Partha Mitter and Sona Datta.
  • “Sculpture”, The Matter Within: Contemporary Art from India, a publication to accompany the survey show at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco, from October 2011 to January 2012. Published in December 2012.
  • “Identity”, India: Art Now, a survey of contemporary Indian art at Arken Museum of Modern Art, Copenhagen, from August 2012 – January 2013. Published by Hatje Cantz in August 2012.

Peer-reviewed Journals & Others

  • “Dark Suns: S.H. Raza”, New Left Review, Volume 140/141, Mar-June, 2023, pp. 157-168. Read
  • “Art & Industry: Stories from South Wales”, Glynn Vivian Art Gallery, Swansea, Exhibition Catalogue, April 2022. Read
  • “Far From Home”, Artforum International, Print, September 2019. Read
  • “Decolonising Art History”, Art History, Vol 43, Issue 1, Feb 2020, p.23-25 Read
  • “The Progressive Artists’ Group & The ‘Idea of India’: Zehra Jumabhoy in Conversation with Karin Zitzewitz  and Sonal Khullar”,  Borderlines CSSAAME, Columbia University Press, 9 October 2019. Read
  • “Of Voyages and Vetiver: a conversation with Zarina Hashmi”, in N.Paradoxa, vol 33, January 2014, pp 26-31. Read
  • “Betwixt and in-between: Reading Zarina Bhimji”, in N.Paradoxa, vol 31, January 2013, pp 88-95. Read
  • “Now, Voyager”, Lead Essay on notions of travel, borders and diaspora in contemporary Indian art for ART India journal, Volume XVII Issue III Quarter III 2013, pp. 32-43. Read