Dr
Musarrat Hasan captures the state of
restlessness of the pioneering artist
Zubeida Agha.
In a festering world of devastating global
and regional uncertainties just after the
First World War and before the Second War,
Zubeida Agha led a lonely secluded life. She
chose a career for herself and pursued it,
with a courage that faced scathing
criticism, with undaunted composure. Zubeida
was the first painter in Pakistan who
presented the conceptual aspects of
modernism, which were based on her inward
journey in pursuit of greater awareness and
self-realization.
She gave us the joy that genuine abstract
art can create. She pioneered a legacy that
has been built upon over the years. She was
one of those artists for whom painting was
not a profession in the commercial sense,
but a passion that gave meaning to her
life...
She was born at a time when the world was
still trying to sort out the intellectual
traumas that had raised their head in Europe
towards the end of the 20th century. This
was a time when every norm was being
questioned and every tradition was
confronted, shaken up and reassessed, in
such a way that the world has not been and
will never be the same again.
The two World Wars brought forth
far-reaching social and political movements
that destroyed the old material
infrastructures and eroded the sanctity of
the ideological super structure. The
cultural upheaval was equally drastic and
the confrontations in the artistic world had
a great impact and resulted in consequences
that have even lasted into the 21st century
and have altered our way of feeling and
thinking. That was the time when the term
'modern' started liberating art from its
entrenchment in tradition and leading it
towards trivial as well as breathtaking new
possibilities.
* * * * *
'These then were some of the concerns that
the art world was facing when Zubeida was
born in 1922. Travellers and artists, many
of whom came back home from London and
Paris, brought these debates and diverse
viewpoints were brought to the Punjab by
travellers and artists. Some of them came
back from other parts of the subcontinent
like Bombay and Calcutta, where European
influences had begun to arrive much earlier
than in the northwestern part of the
country.
From all accounts of her upbringing and
education we realize that hers was an
uncomplicated simple existence without the
daily traumas of having to fight for her
rights and privileges. Even though she was
born in a conventional society she did not
have to tackle any of the major problems
that faced the girls of that time in her
particular environment. For one, she was
born in a family that believed in promoting
quality education for the daughters as well
as the sons. This was an unusual feature
especially in the middle class Muslim
families that lived in pre-Partition urban
Punjab.
During those times any normal girl from
Lahore would, if she received any education
at all, rest on her laurels after a degree
from Kinnaird College and quietly wait for
her parents to arrange a suitable marriage
for her. That seemed to be the general
expectation, for Zubeida had till then not
displayed any interest in a career. The fact
that she joined a college which did not
offer Fine Arts as one of the subjects for
study is indicative of the fact that until
that time she had not realized the extent of
her own commitment. She might have been
fascinated by colour but had not seriously
contemplated adopting painting as her all
encompassing employment, to the exclusion of
every other concern in life.
In the social and political upheavals in the
region closely following the two World Wars
there was a profound insecurity of existence
particularly for women. Zubeida saw around
her a shattered established ethos and the
eruption of religious violence, death and
destruction in the Punjab, during the
Partition of the subcontinent. The result,
after all the fury and hatred had been
spent, was uncertainty and a strange sense
of loss, which usually comes when nations go
through huge upheavals in their social and
political evolution. This atmosphere created
an estrangement in Zubeida and she began to
find the study of philosophy and other
subjects in her college strangely devoid of
all meaning in her life.
Marjorie Hussain who talked to Zubeida just
before she died remembers Zubeida talking
about the Partition, "Speaking of the
turmoil that accompanied Partition in 1947,
Zubeida recalled the confusion and
uncertainty... aware and compassionate, she
deployed her energies to the need of the
time, gradually becoming suffused with the
desire to create from chaos''. 'The Horses'
is one of the few paintings she did in the
year of Partition.
In the solemn and restrictive background
that existed outside her home, Zubeida grew
up in an oasis of a cultured progressive
environment, where her intellectual
upbringing was greatly nurtured and given
its true importance. Her graduation from one
of the premier colleges for women in Lahore
gave her a pensive philosophical background
and encouraged her to look around for a
personal interest in life. Her class fellows
recall her constant need to wash her hands
during her stay in the college, which was
perhaps a psychological manifestation of her
dissatisfaction with what she was doing.
At around this time her family members
recount her state of restlessness, which
might have been caused by a recurring dream
about colours, in which day after day she
saw herself painting. She saw herself
playing with vivid colours that stayed with
her even during her waking moments. She
recounted this dream to her parents and her
elder brother Agha Abdul Hamid, who was an
enlightened civil servant with a great deal
of understanding and knowledge about art and
literature. There must have been serious
discussions among the family, which was
gradually waking up to the realization that
the slip of a girl with strange dreams was
no ordinary person.
* * * * *
Her brother Agha Hamid's wide circle of
friends included artists and writers. In
1944 he was able to arrange art lessons for
her. Zubeida joined B.C. Sanyal's studio,
which was situated above the Regal cinema
house on the Mall in Lahore. Sanyal was a
maverick, whose unwillingness to conform had
resulted in his ouster from the Mayo School
of Art. He had refused to let this stop him
from teaching art and had started his own
studio, where he taught painting and drawing
and held regular art exhibitions. Sanyal's
studio was a very popular place, frequented
by artists, writers and art connoisseurs.
There Zubeida, among other things, was
introduced to the techniques of the old
masters whose work she learnt to copy.
Zubeida expected to devote a short period of
time to her lessons and told Mr Sanyal that
she would be coming to attend his class only
once a week. He did not argue with that and
gave her enough assignments, so that she
could keep practicing during the week, even
at the time when she was away from the
studio. Zubeida however would finish her
assignment in one evening and was back the
very next day. Sanyal made her draw
rigorously from plaster casts and initiated
her to water colours after fifteen days.
Very soon she was painting in oils. She
worked with Sanyal for almost a year, but
found her sense of restlessness coming back
to her.
Dr Musarrat
Hasan is an art historian, an
experienced teacher and a painter of
distinction. She is professor for PhD
studies at the Institute of Art and Design,
University of the Punjab, Lahore.
This volume is about the life and work of
Zubeida Agha, who pioneered the modern art
movement in the early years of Pakistan and
contributed to it throughout the second half
of the last century. It contains 43
reproduction of her paintings. |
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