> And so passes Gulgee…

KARACHI, Dec 19 (Reuters) – Ismail Gulgee, Pakistan’s most prominent artist, was found murdered on Wednesday along with his wife and a maid in their Karachi home, police said. He was 81.They said the three were found gagged in different rooms of the house, which is in the city’s most upmarket district. The hands of his wife, Zarina, were tied.
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“All three were suffocated. This happened around three days ago,” said senior Karachi police officer Asif Ejaz Sheikh.
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Source: Reuters

Even a person like me, who knows little of visual art and often fails to appreciate it, understands that Pakistan lost a great asset this week. And so it was that yesterday, in the evening, I got a call from home.

The acclaimed Pakistani artist Ismail Gulgee has been murdered at his Karachi residence, along with his wife Zareena and their domestique. They were found strangled in their house.

If you’re interested in his art, I must refer you to Adil Najam’s excellent post at All Things Pakistan.

I’ve said before that I know little of visual art. But I found his work on lapis lazuli portraits to be nothing short of phenomenal. Take, for instance, this portrait of the Agha Khan (spiritual leader of the Ismaili Muslims – the sect to which Gulgee belonged):

He made many portraits of this kind. The medium used in these mosaics is blue lapis lazuli stones. Basically, Gulgee had to pick through thousands of pieces of blue stone, in varying colors and shapes and sizes. Then he had to arrange them in such a way that they formed a perfect portrait of a living person. He described it as being similar to a giant jigsaw puzzle. I cannot imagine a more fascinating artistic medium.

His work in calligraphy was a visual treat. Even though I have little patience for the Sufi mysticism to which Gulgee subscribed, I can appreciate the work on a purely visual level. Take a look at this, for instance:

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And now, I’d like to share my personal impressions of the man. What I’m writing here is based solely on my own impressions, based on what I knew of him. There may well be those who disagree with me…those, perhaps, who knew him better than me.

He was well-known in artistic circles in Pakistan. He was famous. He was wealthy. But the first thing which comes to my mind, as I look back on the two decades I’ve known him, is his humble bearing. I’ve seen my fair share of wealthy people, and I have a generally low opinion of them as individuals.

But Gulgee didn’t appear pretentious to me: in fact, he was very much the opposite. In personal life, I found him to be a quite, content man. As far as I know, he had one true passion: his art. In his old age, when he spoke of his work, you could feel the conviction in his rasping voice.

He derived a lot of inspiration and comfort from the Sufi view of the Koran and a one-to-one relationship with God. When he painted, the strokes flowed strongly and naturally. I can easily visualize his eyes half closed, his brush sweeping across the canvas, led irresistibly onwards by some divine force.

There is a lot I could say about his work, his life, his family, and so on. I could also go on to speculate on why he, his wife and their maid-servant were murdered like this.

To the general public in Pakistan, it comes as a total shock. To those of us who knew him personally, however, the circumstances of his death are tragic and yet…not all that surprising. I will not go into those details here: it would be highly inappropriate. And moreover, it would be pointless.

What I can say, however, is that I don’t see Gulgee himself as the kind of man who made any enemies. And yes, I didn’t expect him, of all people, to die this way.

There is no doubt that the Pakistani military and civil establishment valued him highly. Successive governments called on him as their officially-commissioned artist on occasions when important foreign leaders visited the country. It was thus that he painted portraits of foreign dignitaries like Chou En Lai and Charles de Gaulle.

Unfortunately, a lot of Gulgee’s art-work was in service of the ruling and privileged classes, be they Saudi or Afghan royalty, the Agha Khans, or others. I would like to see his artistic innovations and legacy carried forward by a younger generation of Pakistani artists, but this time, in the service of our exploited, brutalized and bullied working masses.

Gulgee got a fair amount of media attention, for an artist of his stature, and it was generally with the privileged people of our society. If there are any artists who want to continue his legacy, I hope they will associate more with the common working people.

I could ramble on for hours, by the way, but I prefer to end it here.

Rest in peace, Gulgee…