Pupils pay a glowing tribute to maestro art teacher after 40 years | Pakistan Press Foundation (PPF)

Pakistan Press Foundation

Pupils pay a glowing tribute to maestro art teacher after 40 years

Pakistan Press Foundation

LAHORE: A group exhibition of paintings titled ‘Prof Khalid Iqbal’s Students of 1974 Class’ opened at Ejaz Art Gallery on Tuesday.

Select paintings of five artists, including Prof Bashir Ahmad, Gulam Mustafa, Iqbal Hussain, Shireen Arif and Zulfiqar Ali Bhatti, who were the students of Prof Khalid Iqbal in 1974 at the National College of Arts (NCA), are put on display.

Prof Bashir Ahmad is a renowned artist and a teacher of arts at the NCA. He studied the art of miniature paintings with Ustad Sheikh Shujaullah and after his graduation from the NCA in 1974; he continued to work with the Ustad. Prof Bashir also established Bachelor’s Degree Programme for Miniature Painting at the NCA in 1982. The visitors greatly appreciated his miniature paintings.

A distinguished artist and winner of the President’s Pride of Performance Award, Gulam Mustafa has also displayed his latest work at the exhibition. Mustafa is a former executive director of the Punjab Council of Arts and founder member of Artist’s Association of Punjab 28 years ago. His paintings belong to the school of plein-air (open-air) painting. Wandering around Lahore – the city he loves very much – Mustafa shares with the mystic effects of light on solid objects. In his art, light creates myriad patterns, dazzling the observer’s eyes as from shadowed lanes; they observe buildings and people dissolve in the sunlight.

Another pupil of the art maestro and now an NCA faculty, Iqbal Hussain has also displayed his work. His first solo exhibition was held at the Lahore Arts Council in 1981. Thereafter, he continued to exhibit his work at national exhibitions and win laurels. His work offers an insight into a way of life that is an ancient tradition and portrays it with stark reality. In the genre of landscape painting, the artist encompasses the beauty of Lahore’s environs and brings to work a personal viewpoint.

Pride of Performance Award winner Zulfiqar Ali Bhatti’s work has also been displayed. He has served as director at the Multan Arts Council and has been a pioneer in establishing fine art classes on academic level in Multan. Besides being the founder of Multan College of Arts in 2003, Bhatti also established the Department of Fine Arts at University of Sargodha. Bhatti is a master of his own self, a painter of beautiful harmonised compositions and a person, who can actually turn a yellow spot into sun.

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