A Forgotten Art Legend: Syed Sadequain Ahmed Naqvi
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Syed Sadequain Ahmed Naqvi, a recipient of many Civil awards in Pakistan, is widely regarded as one of the top artist of the 20th century by the experts. His main reason for the popularity was his contribution to the independent real creative art and Islamic calligraphy. He was also considered to be the one behind the renaissance of Islamic calligraphy in Pakistan. Apart from this, he also acclaimed international recognition due to his efforts in introducing art and poetic calligraphy.
Sadequain was born in Amroha, a city located in Uttar Pradesh, in 1930 during the British rule in India. He belonged to the family of calligraphers from where he developed his interest. He migrated to Pakistan after attaining the graduate degree from the University of Agra. He has been known to be a self-taught artist and a painter who always did his work over a literary subject or idea. He used to claim that his transformation into a calligrapher was established by the divine inspiration. Nobody can challenge his work that it has been taken from any kind of source either western or eastern. His style of work was unique and was termed to be linear in nature. According to the estimates made by the experts, Saqequain work reached up to 15000 pieces that included murals, paintings, drawings etc. The important thing is that he was the painter of ideas and he never looked to paint the same painting twice or more than once.
During his lifetime, he received praise for his work in different fields or ideas. Besides calligraphy and painting, Sadequain was also a social commentator. He presented his thinking or ideas through the murals. He commented on the various subject of human life by depicting them by the murals. His focus upon the man’s quest to discover itself and his surroundings is considered to be the most popular one among the art lovers. However, it would be surprising for everyone that his murals were donated free of cost by him, although, they had a valuable worth in the market. From the statistical point of view, some of his murals are found to be placed as the longest and largest in the world rankings. The distinct feature of his murals was that they were filled finely by the painter in every inch available. The reason behind it was that he did work for his satisfaction and not for financial purposes. Similarly, his quest to knowledge and work for his internal satisfaction enabled to renaissance Islamic calligraphy in Pakistan. His status as one of the greatest calligraphers in Pakistan has a strong ground behind his idea and work of making calligraphy a platform for serious expressionist paintings. The notable thing in his working was that he didn’t follow the traditional concepts of that time regarding the calligraphy and generated his own style of the script of work. Moreover, he did only reform the Islamic calligraphy but also took the field of calligraphy into the first class status which was previously only utilized by experimental purposes by the painters. However, after his adoption of calligraphy as a field of work, many Pakistani artists looked to follow him which made calligraphy dominate the art industry of the country.
Here is some of Sadequain’s artwork
For his extraordinary works, the government of Pakistan honored him with various awards. The first of them was Tamghai-e-Imtiaz in the 1960 and first prize in the national exhibition held in the Karachi. His list of national awards also included Sitare Imtiaz and Pride of Performance. His work also gt admiration at the international level where he also earned some famous awards for artwork which included Laureate de Paris, Australian culture award and Gold mercury award. He visited and presented his work in many exhibitions abroad in which most noticeable are the USA and France. His work has other fascinating aspects too in which one cannot forget his creation of the largest mural in Pakistan at the site of Mangla dam. He also paid tribute to the Ghalib and Faiz Ahmed Faiz through large oil paintings in which their famous verses were illustrated. Apart from these achievements, no one can ignore his creation of a masterpiece collection of Rubaiyyat. Later on, Sadequain also introduced a book over the same topic named “Rubaiyyat-e-Sadequain-Naqqash”. In the recent past, a project named “The Holy Sinne: Sadequaina” was introduced in which the makers aim to reproduce the work of the Sadequaine in detail to present a rich tribute to the legendary artist.
As an artist, he used to work relentlessly to display his ideas into the murals or paintings. He looked to present his message through these colorful symbols and illustrations. However, his work has been lost in large number. He carelessly gifted or granted his pieces of art to the institutions and to the individuals without any record. Nonetheless, in 2011, a step was taken by the Sadequain foundation for the celebration of work of him in which exhibition was held to display his work by gathering it from a number of places with the help of National Council of arts and information ministry of Pakistan. The foundation works without any commercial purposes and has sole focus over the preservation and promotion of the work by Sadequain in the field of art. To the achievement of its goal to protect the artwork, the foundation has approached different countries internationally to locate the work of Sadequain. Moreover, to rais awareness among the audiences regarding the importance of Sadequain in the history of art and Pakistan, the foundation also conducts seminars and exhibitions in different cities of Pakistan and has published 14 books for this purposes.
The legacy of Saqequain is an important part of the art industry of Pakistan and is remembered as the artist for his work not only in paintings but also in large murals. The unfortunate event of his death occurred in the 10 February in 1987 in the city of Karachi, Pakistan. However, he lives even after his death in the art industry and has been the subject for art students in different academic institutions.
You can read more about him on ViewStorm: Syed Sadequain Ahmed Naqvi
