The paintings of Pakistan’s top contemporary artist Jamil Naqsh attracted thousands of visitors at Albemrale, central London Gallery. The month long solo show by Naqsh – recipient of Sitara-i-Imtiaz and Pride of Performance concluded featuring his retrospective collection on Wednesday. Naqsh holds a key position in the rapidly changing art scenes at home and abroad and is also well established in international auctions. As a student at Mayo College (now National College of Arts), he was like the other young Pakistani artists of his generation, exposed to the main figures in European Modernism and also to works by the major European old masters. For Naqsh another source of inspiration, inevitably, was Picasso and yet another was the work of great French Neo-classicist, Jean Dominique Ingres. The impact made by Ingres is particularly interesting, since Ingres was a leader of the ‘orientalist’ tendency in 19th century European art. In the words of art historian Edward Luice Smith, “Naqsh re-absorbs Ingres and re-forges links to the sensuous tradition that plays so large a part in Mughal miniature painting.” Naqsh combines the traditional methods of Mughal miniature painting with European techniques as for him the two approaches are not mutually exclusive. As this exhibition demonstrates, Naqsh’s work has long tended to develop in series, though the themes often overlap. In Pakistan, he is probably most loved for his pigeon and women paintings. This was his first show in London which took up some of the major themes of his career. “The exhibition demonstrated how an artist with major gifts, coming from background of sub continent has been able to enter into a fruitful relationship with Western modernism, and thus link himself to what is now a worldwide community of visual artists”, Smith said. A large number of his exhibitions including 14 solo shows have been held at different art capitals of the world.
