Past the engraved wooden door, there is a treasury of art that belongs to two of the country’s most celebrated artists. Mansoor Rahi and his wife Hajra Mansoor, have made this gallery space and research museum their permanent abode, a sort of legacy. Housing a colossal collection of their masterpieces, this private showcase is probably the closest one gets to viewing not just rare art pieces, but also the phased evolution of the two artists, which spans over five decades.
As light fills the room, the paintings on the walls become more prominent. Ornamented, fair-skinned women and monarchs with chiselled features, colourful birds and traditional architecture are all reminiscent of Mughal art, a natural influence for Hajra, who studied the art in Lucknow. Underneath the large canvases adorning the walls; an array of wooden desks and folding chairs line the room neatly. The duo, each an institution in their own right, hosts bi-weekly, informal gatherings to share their acumen and expertise with a diverse group of artists and art students.
A soft-spoken Hajra greets one warmly, seated on a sofa chair in a compact lounge that doubles as an office, with a desktop computer and a telephone line in one corner and some photographs tacked up on an adjacent wall. “This is a non-commercial gallery, and it will persist as our life museum when we are no more,” she says. “Art should be preserved and documented. The wonderful artist that Chughtai was, some of his very valuable paintings have been destroyed and lost, since he was unfamiliar with the chemistry of art,” she adds, underscoring that along with practice, the academic part of research is just as pertinent.
Mansoor shares similar sentiments. “There have been many great artists in the Indian subcontinent, such as Sadequain, Chughtai and Gulgee, but nobody has kept any record of their work so this museum is unique in that sense. It may also serve as an educational resource for the new generation of artists,” he says.
“Art is a language; it has its own syntax and semantics. We are imparting art education in a private manner. Instead of specialised courses, we offer apprenticeships to artists, who are exhibiting their paintings both nationally and internationally,” he adds.
Maintaining discipline is key for the couple, who both live and work in the gallery. They paint six days a week, taking a break to reacquaint with natural landscape. “I love the mountainside where I spend my free time,” Mansoor adds, pointing out that he is perhaps that peculiar artist who has scratched a healthy balance between his art and family life. “I’m perhaps the only painter across generations who loves his wife, is friends with her and has not touched wine despite being presented the opportunity to do so on various occasions,” he adds.
Spiralling down a narrow staircase, the basement opens into Mansoor’s gallery and studio. The dizzying rows break into a cornucopia of canvases, chronicling his work since his early art school days in Dhaka, to more recent paintings.
His work has evolved from academic realism, cubical analytical fractionism, organical mysticism, rayhonistic cubical formalism and neo-precisionism over the decades. He has given a new track of modern elements to cubism, which is post and neo-cubism today. A large body of his work is structured paintings, with bold forms of mainly human figure.
The septuagenarian painter has promoted modern concepts of art among several of his students; many of them are well known painters, sculptors and award holders of “Pride of Performance” and “Hilal-e-Imtiaz.”
He also worked to uplift the standard of art teaching and developing the concept of appreciation of art with the help of an art-teaching programme, Daily Morning Transmission on PTV for six years.
Pioneers of the Karachi School of Art, which they helped set up in the early 60s, the couple has worked extensively in developing a culture of artists and art appreciation where there was none. Moreover, they have also represented the country at various international art forums and galleries around the globe.
However, Hajra feels that due attention has not been never given to the promotion of art within the country. “There is no dearth of talent in the country but the government has taken no tangible steps to promote its indigenous talent at a national or international level,” she says.
“Instead we get labeled as a violent and intolerant society when the government should focus on promoting the rich Pakistani art and culture around the world.”
With the museum, the couple aims to share their mammoth wisdom and research with the public in general and artists in particular. For an artist who aspires to learn from them, an intuitive sensitivity for the medium is a must-have.
Published in The Express Tribune, February 1st, 2014.
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