Abdul Rehman Chughtai

The name of Abdul Rehman Chughtai would be the first one would come to forth and perhaps the only one. His paintings are so close to reality with natural colours that one is simply spell bound and lost into the beautiful colours and brush strokes. Chughtai was born in 1894 and educated at the famous Mayo School of Art, Lahore (now the National College of Arts), studied under Abanindranath Tagore and Printmaking in London. He was also Head-instructor in Chromo-Lithography at the Mayo School of Art, Lahore. Chughtai exhibited with the Punjab Fine Art Society, Lahore (1920) and the Indian School of Oriental Art during the 1920s. During the late 1930s, Chughtai's work contributed greatly to the energetic modern art scene that was burgeoning in pre-partition Lahore.
In keeping with the revivalist spirit of the New Bengal School, he sought inspiration from the Mughal Miniature and the "Naqsh" or patterns of the Islamic decorative arts. Referring to his painting. Chughtai writes, "These humble creations are redolent of those old days when we were making efforts to live and dream with the brethren of this land...this background of my art should not be lost sight of." "Muraqqa-e-Chughai" is a rare publication in which Chughtai transformed the poetry of great Urdu poet Asad Ullah Khan Ghalib with his brilliant skilful strokes and elegant art-work. Here the heights of literature seems to have been transformed into a the finest piece of art, specially the unparalleled water-colours of Chughtai. The verses of Ghalib and their illustrations by Chughtai provide a symmetrical effect. Perhaps no one else could have done justice to Ghalib's poetry other than Chughtai - in fact no one ever dared.
Chughtai also designed a number of postage stamps of Pakistan from 1949 to 1960s.On the independence day of 1951, he produced a set of 9 stamps, internationally known as Chughtai Art set, was considered as the most beautiful stamps of the world at that time. Abdul Rehman Chughtai died in 1975.

Sadequain

Sadequain (1930-1987) would go down in the history of painting in Pakistan in particular and rest of the world in general as a genuine painter, who left so many footsteps that many are copying till date. Syed Sadequain Ahmed Naqvi, also often referred to as Sadequain Naqqash, or just Sadequain was born in 1930. At the age of 31, his work won recognition at the 1961 Paris Biennale. Sadequain had a prolific career and much of his work is displayed in public places. During his life, Sadequain became a cult figure with a large following from all walks of life. The content of his work has wider appeal, and the early works addressed social evils. In the later decades, Sadequain used the unifying spirit of calligraphy to appeal to the masses, who came in large numbers to see his exhibitions. Basically, Sadequain was a social commentator. His murals generally depicted man’s endless quest to discover and develop the endless potentialities that lie within him and without. The whole pageant of man’s triumphal progress, past, present and future is captured in line and color in one magnificent form. His murals are densely filled and tightly packed with images to render adequately the lofty subject.
The images that Sadequain's brush strokes produced are not only rich in symbolic meaning but visually so much variegated that the eye travels fascinated from point to point. Sadequain was responsible for the renaissance of Islamic Calligraphy in Pakistan. He was one of the greatest calligraphers of his time who transformed the art of calligraphy into eye-catching expressionist paintings. His calligraphy comes from a divine inspiration, giving it a dimension of space and movement. He carried the script with a flourish in all directions, giving it the power of space, vigour and volume. In Pakistan, the art of calligraphy was relegated to a second class status until Sadequain adapted this medium in the late nineteen sixties. To that time, calligraphy was restricted to few "ustads" of drawing in schools and were not avaialable to general public. After Sadequain transformed the art of calligraphy into a mainstream art form, most of the known Pakistani artists have followed Sadequain and calligraphic art now dominates the art scene. Sadequain also painted in bold form the poetic verses of Ghalib, Iqbal and Faiz, which illustrate his love for classical literature. He belonged to the school of thought, which enriched realism with lyricism. Sadequain wrote thousand of quartets and published them. Sadequain is the only painter who has been copied openly and widely by many painters and even the copies fetch large sums to the copiers, an irony since the artist himself hardly ever sold his works in spite of offers coming from the royals and the common public. As an example his masterpiece rendition of Sureh-e-Rehman has been copied widely by many known painters of the modern era.
The brush strokes stopped on February 10, 1987 in Karachi, when the greatest of the painters and calligraphists was just 57. Many have imitated his work since then, but he remains to this date a very class of his own, which cannot be imitated, copied or reproduced.

Shakir Ali

Shakir Ali (1914–1975) was a Pakistani artists and teacher. Shakir Ali is a name to remember for he was the pioneer of modern art in Pakistan. From calligraphy to humans and landscaping, he has his own name. He had firsthand experience of Modern Art in Paris. After studying art at J.J. School of Art, he attended Slade School in London, and then worked in Paris with Andre L’Hote before he went to Prague.
Art for Shakir is a meant of expressing his own lonely personality. It is devoid of sensuousness and sentimentality, and possesses the distilled quality of brooding in in solitude on subjects from life, which only provide point of departure into the realm of line, tone values and color. His approach to his craft is essentially of virtuoso. He treats line solely as a matter of Measure, short or long, of angles, obtuse or acute. He uses tone values or chiaroscuro as Weight and color as Quality. He uses these three formal elements in the construction of new order and creates image, which we call the subject.
In the work of such artist, the appearance of recognizable object is cause for confusion among the viewers. Every object from organic world has whole range of associate properties, which exist for viewers, but may or may not be present in the mind of artist, when he is painting it. His aim appears to be to construct symphony in line, tone values and color, and open now perspective in the dimension of meaning.
Shakir, in 1956, is held in high esteem, as an artist. His background, together with long time at National College of Arts, first as Head of Art Department and later as Principal, deservedly earn him a position of reverence. He has reached the stage, where he runs the risk of being praised, without being really understood or appreciated.
Many of his paintings feature birds, portraying personal freedom in a world of conventions. His house after his death has been converted into a museum for the art lovers to come and admire his lifelong work. He had been principle of the famous National College of Arts, Lahore.

Anna Molka Ahmed

Prof Anna Molka Ahmed (1917 - 1994) was a famous Pakistani artist and pioneer of fine arts in the newly born Pakistan in 1947. She was a professor of fine arts at the University of the Punjab in Lahore. She was among the pioneers of women artists in Pakistan and had been a long-time director and moving spirit behind the Fine Arts Department of the Punjab University, Lahore - the first institution that was opened to the women artists in Pakistan. "In fact she has been the facilitator of a movement that made the proactive role of women artists a possibility". writes Nilofur Farrukh (president of International Art Critics Association, Pakistan Section). It is because of trendsetters like her that the feminist art in Pakistan is gaining strength away from traditional gender discriminatory dominance. In fact these days we are witnessing a gradual dismantling of social and gender classifications. Well this has not been easy, since a lot of women had to struggle hard to bring women atop many a prestigious positions - above men, Ana Molka Ahmed is one such women.
She was born to Jewish parents, in London, UK in 1917. Her mother was Polish and father was a Russian. She studied painting, sculpture and design at St. Martin School of Arts, London. She converted to Islam at the age of 18 in 1935, before marrying Sheikh Ahmed, a would be Pakistani in October 1939. The couple moved to the Indian subcontinent in 1940-41 and settled in Lahore. Although, her marriage was over in 1951, but yet she lived in Pakistan with her two daughters. She was awarded Tamgha-i-Imtiaz, for her Portfolios in the field of fine arts education in the country. Professor Emeritus Anna Molka Ahmed set up a department, which has now become a center of excellence for Fine Arts in Pakistan. At the time of independence, there were only five or six Muslim students in the art department, and Anna Molka Ahmed went from one college to another seeking students for the arts department and thus was able to introduce art courses in the Punjab University. Her students became famous artists in the country and many of them are playing their role globally.
Beside painting, she was an avid gardener. She would wear her trade mark while tending the garden, cutting hedges in new and artistic pattern, and went on painting and gardening till the very last time until she was ordered by the doctors to stop because it was straining her health badly. Anna Molka also took to writing poetry in later part of her life. She breathed her last in 1994.

Ismail Gulgee

Ismail Gulgee is an award-winning, globally famous Pakistani artist born in Peshawar on October 25, 1926. He is a qualified engineer in the U.S. and self-taught abstract painter and portrait painter. Before 1959, as portraitist, he painted the entire Afghan Royal Family. From about 1960 on, he is noted as an abstract painter influenced by the tradition of Islamic calligraphy and by the American "action painting" idiom.
Gulgee is a gifted and consummately skilled naturalistic portrait painter. Nevertheless, he is perhaps best known worldwide for his abstract work, which is inspired by Islamic calligraphy and is also influenced by the "action painting" movement of the 1950s and 1960s (Mitter notes that Elaine Hamilton was a strong influence in this direction). This is perhaps a natural enough stylistic combination, since in both Islamic calligraphy and action painting a high value is placed on the unity and energy of gestural flow. As with the works of other action painters or abstract expressionists, Gulgee's canvases are often quite large. He is also known for using materials such as mirror glass and gold or silver leaf in his oil paintings, so that they are in fact mixed media pieces.
"Gulgee's calligraphy paintings are abstract and gestural interpretations of Arabic and Urdu letters. His sweeping layers of paint explore the formal qualities of oil paint while they make references to Islamic design elements."
Gulgee has since the 1960s also created sculptures, including bronze pieces that are (like so many of his paintings) calligraphic in form and inspiration, and sometimes specifically based on verses from the Koran
His paintings are bright and full of color, but the paint is put on with great sensitivity, and paintings vibrate with intense feeling. Areas sing with luminous, thin color; thick blobs of paint pulsate with fiberglass tears, the brush swirls strong and free. The total effect is very free, yet considered and well thought out. They work enormously well, because it is all orchestrated with great care and concentration.
Paintings are often commissioned, or go abroad and therefore only reach relatively small audience. He has had exhibitions in Afghanistan and Pakistan.