Image and Identity: Fifty Years of Painting and Sculpture in Pakistan

This is a first-ever history of art written in the country, which discusses artistic forms and personal identities of artists as a discourse on the modern and contemporary art of Pakistan. The first two chapters deal with the subcontinental art scene against the background of the decay of Mughal painting, the emergence of company painting and, finally, the triumph of the western style of Raj painting, and reaction against it from Abanindranath Tagore and Chughtai. The author argues that Pakistani art is a distinct facet of the Muslim heritage of the subcontinent. The works of Zubeida Agha, Shakir Ali, and other pioneers of modern art, have been analysed in detail, focusing on how the modern artists of Pakistan have used cubism and abstract art in the traditional subcontinental way of turning historical necessity into culturally viable individual expressions. A separate chapter deals with Pakistan’s women artists who are defining their independent role in the gender context. A chapter on sculpture draws notice for the first time to its lively existence in Pakistan.