Gulgee II
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Remembering a friend
By Ahmed Mirza Jamil
Since I heard about the gruesome murder of my friend Gulgee, his wife and their maid, I have just not been able to reconcile with the ugly reality. When I think of Gulgee my mind races back to some time in the early 1960s. It all started when I was given greeting cards to print for Burmah Shell; the sketch of a camel-cart and its coachman done in crayons by a not-very-well- known artist who answered to the name of Ismail Gulgee.
In those days block printing was in vogue, where the screen could not be removed from the background. I was told that the artist was insistent that the screen should be done away with in the background but the shade of the camel cart should not be removed. I at once thought that the artist was a professional, which was why he had laid down that condition.
At Elite Publishers, we had just introduced offset printing but in those days there were no scanners. Colour separation was done more or less manually. I had bought a locally made wooden process camera to make films so I used that and the remaining work was done by hand, which was a painstaking and time-consuming job, demanding expertise. I had to do several experiments before getting the desired result.
The card was printed and the client was more than happy; shortly after the cards were delivered my secretary told me that one Mr Gulgee had come to see me. We had moved to the SITE (Sindh Industrial and Trading Estate) area, which was in those days considered a God forsaken place and people thought twice before visiting somebody there. I asked for him immediately. In fact I remember I went out of my room to escort him back.
Gulgee was profuse in his praise for the job done and I was impressed that here was a man who didn’t think that once he had handed over his artwork, his responsibility was over. We clicked from the word go.
From then onwards every time he designed something that was to be printed, he insisted that the job be given to me. His standards were high and it was a challenge to prove equal to them. I am glad that he was never disappointed.
Even during the period when I had taken a sabbatical from Elite Publishers, whenever a greeting card or a calendar designed by Gulgee was sent to Elite, I got involved in it completely.
With the passage of time we became friends. He was very reliable and sincere. When I was the district governor of Rotary Club and we were celebrating 75 years of Rotary International we decided to invite Prince Karim Aga Khan, who very graciously accepted the invitation. The question was what to give him as a memento. I had seen the portrait of the late Aga Khan’s done beautifully by Gulgee in lapis lazuli, so I suggested that we print that and then thought of doing a portfolio with a few sketches of the family members of the late Aga Khan. Who could have been a better choice than Gulgee to do the sketches — he was a sketch maker par excellence.
Time was short and the assignment was demanding, particularly since we wanted to do a quality job, something worthy of the great family. The one major plus point was that the artist and the publisher/printer were on the same wavelength. We were both racing against time, and were in touch with each other at least three times a day.
The portfolio was printed and both Gulgee and I felt ten feet tall when the Aga Khan liked it immensely and was generous in his praise. Prince Karim Aga Khan declared that he would display the sketches in his palace in Paris. In all, there were 12 sketches in addition to the reproduction of the portrait of the late Aga Khan done earlier.
If you look at the sketches, some of which appear in this issue of Gallery, you will notice that with few strokes and minimal lines Gulgee brought out the resemblance of the people he painted. There is spontaneity in his work, in other words it doesn’t come across as laboured. Another strong point is his drawing in black and white crayons on coloured backgrounds such as grey or bronze, which was not an easy thing to do.
His wonderful portrayal of midday sunlight reminds me of the works of Langhmer, a Czech refugee in India in the 1940s and I have a feeling that Gulgee might have been influenced by him.
Gulgee’s dedication to his work was just as astounding as his humility. He never talked of his achievements and what is no less, he never spoke ill of anybody. When somebody indulged in backbiting or gossip mongering, he remained quiet making it obvious that he was not enjoying the conversation.
We last met at the Japanese Consulate’s function to celebrate the Japanese emperor’s birthday. “Let’s get together and talk of the good old days,” he told me. He didn’t know, nor did I, or for that matter anybody else, that his days were numbered. May God rest his soul in peace.
Gulgee as I knew him
By Jalaluddin Ahmed
Human beings may be expendable; but what they have the power to create and leave behind could belong to another domain which is neither easy nor necessary to define: Iqbal alluded to it as the realm of the ‘Keepers of God’s secrets’.
Gulgee often talked about art as a journey, a pilgrimage, in search of a ‘there’ that unbeknown to us is also ‘here’, the continuation of an inner life, often no more than its visible externalisation. Last time we met at a friend’s house, our conversation turned to the Simurgh of Fariduddin Al-Attar’s Mantaq-at-Tair (Conference of the Birds), the 12th century epic in which 30 birds set out on a journey to meet their Lord and Master. The journey across endless deserts, mountains and valleys, ends in a ‘nowhere’, making them self-aware that they contain within themselves what they are seeking. (Si-murgh in Persian means 30 birds).
Yet, Gulgee was a man of the world, of this world, celebrating, portraying, enhancing life as perhaps only an artist can. He was a friend of friends, jovial and scholarly, soft-spoken but definitive, precise even when being expansive. His early initiation as a mathematician and engineer gave him skills and insights which stayed with him all his life. I remember the excitement tempered with minutely worked out details neatly spread on sheets of paper as he cheerfully manipulated one of the heaviest hand-beaten sculptures (approximately seven tons) which he had created for the Faisal mosque in Islamabad. As we discussed some of the calligraphic flourishes for the mosque’s pulpit and the niche, he quietly spoke of coming to calligraphy — or calligraphy to him — rather late in life. “I have taught myself how to learn, and I enjoy learning”, he said casually, almost as in a whisper to himself, and moved on.
I came to know him while researching for my book Art in Pakistan way back in the 1950s. At our meeting he mentioned having had his Honours in Engineering from Aligarh Muslim University in 1945 — it was a year earlier than my own brief stint there teaching English. “I am still an engineer, and not an unsuccessful one as careers go,” he confided with characteristic nonchalance, and added, “But my heart is in painting — has always been, and that is what I am going to do.” He did — and over the years gave painting itself new forms, meanings and dimensions.
The late Annemarie Schimmel, herself a mystic and one of the last century’s finest western scholars of Islamic art, paid him a fitting tribute, “Who would have imagined that an artist can create an amazing sculpture of a Quranic ayat in all the different calligraphic styles… I never forget my joy when I was confronted for the first time with the mihrab in the Faisal mosque in Islamabad, that enormous prayer niche in the shape of an open book, made of marble, with Surah ar-Rahman written on its pages in powerful golden Eastern Kufi, and the pages bound together by a magnificent mirrored ‘Allah’ in lapis lazuli.”
Gulgee was easy to get along with and we kept meeting now and again as he ambled through photography to drawing and painting, with exploratory forays into the third dimensional. He steadily matured as an astute painter of portraits. This also meant his frequent travels on commissions abroad, making him available to us back home less and less, mostly only ‘in transit’ as friends teased him. He brought back ‘stories’ of the high and mighty whom he painted, and the new mediums and styles he was discovering or inventing.
I recall one of his visits to Kabul, returning from there with child-like excitement about the possibilities of marble which he diligently studied and came to handle with the felicity, freedom and affection that would do credit to an artist as much as to a craftsman. He was also developing an interest in calligraphy and Islamic art, generally, reading a great deal about mysticism and its various manifestations in the East and the West.
At about this time my own career path took me away from Pakistan for nearly three decades, with only brief visits here once or twice a year. Our meetings were few and far between, until 1986 when he came for an extended visit to London and agreed to sit for a wide-ranging interview which we published in the journal Arts & the Islamic World. In it he forcefully argued, “The ultimate direction of art will be spiritual. That is the only thing which has depth and all the other reasons — Cubism, this ‘ism’, that ‘ism’ — are just pieces of whimsical nothingness. Very important in artistry of course, because the whole structure has been built around it, but ultimately man’s relation with God or with nature, or with himself — which is the same thing as man’s relationship with God — will extend the power of art.”
Gulgee was arguably the most prolific among Pakistani artists working in the decades of 1950 onwards, and it has often occurred to me that while he had his first solo exhibition in Stockholm as early as 1950, followed over the next few years by those in Ottawa, Tehran and Kabul, he did not have a solo exhibition in Pakistan until the late 1970s. Of course his work was seen in group shows and in situ on commissioned assignments, but apparently he was torn between styles and genres, experimenting and innovating, sketching on paper and grappling with bronze, making portraits in oil and in marble, creating emblems, murals, sculptures, and working with onyx and lapis lazuli.
It would appear that he ultimately opted for responding to the rhetorical question he himself posed in an erudite lecture sometime ago at the Aga Khan auditorium in Karachi, “How can man’s efforts be compared to the word of God?” Of course it cannot be compared to the word of God, but perhaps comes nearest to comprehending and embracing it!
The writer is Director General, Foundation for Museum of Modern Art (Fomma), Pakistan This page: Umra, 1974, Oil on gold and silver leaf on canvas Facing page: Gulgee in his studio
Flowers for Gulgee
By Quddus Mirza
It was in his own museum where I saw Gulgee and his paintings, drawings and sculptures, with a number of students from NCA, when we paid a visit to the aging but highly active artist. Several young students — some for the first time in an artist’s studio — were shy to speak to a man who appeared to have emerged from the history of Pakistan art.
They were reluctant to ask questions, or request for a photograph with him, but amazingly it was Gulgee who took the initiative, gave a full tour of his museum, explained his works, shared his thoughts, laughed with us and urged the students to have pictures taken with him. His kindness, honesty and enthusiasm encouraged the young visitors to be close to him, and treat him as a grandfather-like figure.
Perhaps Gulgee enjoyed this role interacting with those who approached him, even if only to ask for work. For him making a human connection was more important than any thing else; so occasions he gave away his paintings as gifts. It was a form of sharing his creative achievement with others. This side of his personality was evident in the way he warmly spoke to students about the process and development of his art. A creative life that began in 1950, with his first one person exhibition held in Stockholm till his last days in Karachi, and produced abstract paintings, calligraphies (and combination of the two), portraits of important personalities, sketches and mosaics.
It will take some time to properly evaluate the real position of Gulgee in Pakistani art, but one must pay homage to his untiring energy that was responsible for creating innumerable canvases, with pure abstract imagery, and the name of God or the script from the Quran, composed in a painterly manner. With his work, in different dimensions and mediums, Gulgee demonstrated a dedication to his craft and visual concerns. That turned into an unmistakeable mark of Gulgee, which a number of artists tried to copy — or forge, but no one was successful.
The success of Gulgee lay in his scheme of capturing the moment through the loaded brush strokes. Although he acquired a distinct style (a kind of appropriation of abstract aesthetics), he never boasted about his own originality or his status in Pakistani art. Instead, like a genuine painter — he spent more of his time making art — despite all sorts of distractions and temptations to make money.
I recall an earlier meeting with him in his studio. I was with a friend who runs a private gallery in Karachi. With his usual smile, he welcomed us, showed his new canvases, but his interaction with the gallery owner was not professional at all. No discussion about pricing, gallery commission or other delicate matters about marketing his art took place. He was more interested in talking about the origin of his work, sharing his technique with us, discussing different aspects, taking us around his house — and basically charming both of us with his warm personality, soft spoken manners and sophisticated ideas.
Images of him, in his work clothes — taking us to different rooms, explaining his paintings and touching his mosaics — surfaced when I heard the terrible news. Even though we are living in a society where murder has become common one could not associate this kind of departure with a person like Gulgee. In that respect his death recalled that of another artist, Zahoorul Akhlaq, since both were murdered close to Eid — and in the last days of December. Besides the similar pattern of their deaths, the two artists had some other common characteristics, as both were respected and regarded as harmless, loving individuals — with no enemies.
If the death of Gulgee reflects our society, the life of the painter represents our culture. As in the words of Ngugi wa Thiong’o, art is an essential component of culture, because like a flower, which portrays beauty as well as contains seeds to regenerate the plant, art conveys aesthetic qualities and transmits the human experience. The art of Gulgee plays that role. His work, recalling abstract art in Pakistan, also suggests the efforts of our artists to imbibe influences from outside and to formulate personal expressions and an indigenous vocabulary.
Presumably this feature — transforming a mainstream art movement into a local context — made Gulgee the household icon and one of the most recognised painters of Pakistan. For a society that hardly cares about its visual artists, Gulgee was a familiar name and a much loved personality. On many occasions he returned the love and expressed his desire to donate his works to a national collection — a dream that has remained unfulfilled by his death.
Remembering Gulgee in different voices
By Asif Noorani
KARACHI: It was Gulgee’s bad luck that he was murdered shortly before the country’s most popular leader Benazir Bhutto was assassinated. His sad end somehow receded in the memory of his compatriots, more so because the tragic death of BB was followed by a reign of looting and destruction. But all said, Abdul Ismail Gulgee, one of the very few titanic figures in this country’s history of visual arts, certainly doesn’t deserve to be forgotten even for a while.
The FOMMA-DHA Art Centre rose to the occasion when under its honorary director Nighat Mir a memorial meeting was held at the beautifully restored barrack turned art centre. Zulfiqar Ali Lakhani, chairman FOMMA, was supposed to be there, but the man who wears so many hats may have been detained elsewhere. Conspicuous by his absence was FOMMA’s executive director Jalal Uddin Ahmed. He is these days in the UAE in connection with his latest passion -- the revival of the splendid journal Art and the Islamic World, which was once edited with distinction by Azra Jalal, when they were settled in London.
Nighat Mir set the ball rolling and did rather well when she said had she been able to communicate with the great artist she would have told him “Gulgee, your departure has left a gaping hole in the vast canvas of the art world, not just in Pakistan but all over the world.” She was right because artists and artistes of his calibre are citizens of the world.
A frail looking Amin Gulgee was there too. He spoke of his father and mother in a voice charged with emotions. “I used to call him dada, and my mother mama. They were great friends and I give them full marks for bringing us up, that is, me and my sister, as they did. They were so much interested in each other. They were best of friends. They were different in nature which is why they made a successful couple.” He dwelt on the ‘made for each other’ theme before he talked about the talents and the accomplishments of his father as an artist. At one point it seemed he would break down but he didn’t. Nighat Mir was holding his arm in support.
The next to speak was Marjorie Husain, the doyenne of art critics in Pakistan. She had had a long association with the late artist and had written extensively on him. “There are so many good things to remember about them. They were always smiling. They were always affectionate.” She didn’t say much about him as an artist perhaps because she has not left anything that is noteworthy unsaid. She recalled the speech that Gulgee had made in 1989 at the inauguration of a seminar at the DHA library, where her lovely painting Iqra, casts a spell on viewers.
Speaking at the end Javed Jabbar spoke highly of “the two inimitable personalities”. In one sense his was a welcome change from others in that when expressing regrets over the murders of the artist and his wife he remembered the poor maid, who just happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time. (The one minute silence at the beginning of the programme was for the couple and, sadly, not for the maid).
On the Gulgees, he said they were gracious guests and warm and hospitable hosts. He claimed that behind the rough exterior of Zorro there was a kind-hearted person, who worked with zeal for the unprivileged at the SOS village.
“Gulgee had a pair of piercing and sharp eyes and his voice had unusually expressive qualities. It conveyed pain and pleasure alike in a highly eloquent manner. He was as articulate as his paintings.”
JJ, as he is commonly known, spoke about the amazing range of the artist’s subjects. “He drew a camel driver with the same passion as he did when he was asked to paint the head of a state,” said Jabbar, who was a friend of the couple for several years. He quoted the late Ahmad Parvaiz, an artist of no mean calibre, on Gulgee.
“He was a model for hundreds of young artists, who were inspired by him, even if some of them never cared to acknowledge it. He had an inexhaustible reservoir of energy. Marjorie had quite rightly said, way back in 1999 that it was an exciting experience watching him at work. She had aptly described him as a dervish of an artist,” said JJ, much to the discomfiture of the lady sitting next to him.
In the end the mike was taken to Gulgee’s relatives, admirers and some artists including Durriya Kazi and Nahid Raza. Nahid spoke in Urdu and the words came straight from her heart. That is Nahid Raza for you.
