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lot 54

lot 54

Jamil Naqsh

Ladder

oil on canvas
48 x 36 in. (121.5 x 91 cm.)
painted in 2012

Winning Bid: $ 60,000

Estimate: US$ 40,000 - 60,000

Lot Closed

Lot Details

Signed 'Jamil Naqsh' (lower right)
Further signed 'Jamil Naqsh' (on the reverse)

PROVENANCE
Albemarle Gallery, London
Private collection, Dubai
Artiana / Sale 1801 / Lot 25 / South Asian Art - Classical, Modern and Contemporary / Dubai / 10-14 May 2018

EXHIBITED AND PUBLISHED
Jamil Naqsh: Memories of Doves & Pigeons, Albemarle Gallery, London, 2012, pg. 11 (illustrated)

LOT ESSAY
'Through the years, Naqsh has remained single-minded about his work; it was and remains, the crux of his existence. His concerns address the surface of his canvas, the subject a means of manipulating space. Pigeons is a subject he has explored for over forty years that emerged as a facet of a personal idiom. For him, pigeons represent domestic harmony drawn from memories of his childhood in Kairana, they were a frequent visitor to the family home, flying in and out through open windows, strutting around the compound and pecking at grains scattered by girls who sifted wheat. In later paintings, the pigeons acted as a fluttering foil to monumental female figures; a striking contrast of movement and stillness. [...] (Jamil Naqsh: A Retrospective, Mohatta Palace Museum, Karachi, 2013, pg.39)

The images of pigeons so prominent in one of his series of paintings, speak not only of clandestine romance, but are also symbolic of a lost epoch of tranquil family life before the trauma of his mother's early death closely followed by the further trauma of the exile that followed Partition after the second World War. [...] (E.L. Smith, Jamil Naqsh: An Artist Between Three Cultures, Albemarle Gallery, 2016)

Jamil Naqsh

(1939 - 2019)
Born in 1939, in Kairana in Uttar Pradesh, India, Jamil Naqsh moved to Karachi in Pakistan following the partition of the subcontinent in 1947. In 1953, he enrolled at the National College Art (then Mayo College) in Lahore, but did not complete his education there, leaving after two years to study art on his own. Naqsh’s mature style is a blend of cubism – in the way he treats form and texture – tempered with fluidity and a subtle use of colour. Naqsh has painted the female form in many of his canvases replete with poise and grace. In another series of paintings he pairs pigeons and doves with the female form, symbolic of love, peace and gentleness. One more series of works, inspired by the Italian sculptor Mario Marini, who captured the beauty of the horse in his work, combines the elegance of the nude female with the sturdy grace of the equine figure. Naqsh’s work has been exhibited extensively in Pakistan, India, the UK and the UAE. Between 1960 and 68 he served as Co-Editor of Seep, an Urdu literary magazine, and between 1970 and 73 as President of the Pakistan Painters Guild. Among the artist’s many honours are medals and awards from the Pakistan Art Council, Karachi; the Ministry of Culture, Pakistan; and the Arts Council of Pakistan. In 2009, Naqsh was awarded the Sitara-e Imtiaz by the Government of Pakistan, and in 2003, a retrospective of his work was held at the Mohatta Palace Museum in Karachi, a rare honour for a living artist. Naqsh passed away on May 16, 2019 after a sudden and brief illness, at St. Mary's hospital in London. He is recognized as one of the most important painters from Pakistan.