Sadequain-LIBRARY

SADEQUAIN: The Holy Sinner
Multimedia Project by Mohatta Palace

Salman Ahmad

Sadequain (1930-1987) was the most original artist, calligrapher, and poet of our times. Prolific, diverse, and intense, his remarkable career spanned over three decades.

Raymond Congiat, an eminent art critique of France wrote in Le Figaro of France that Sadequain was the only serious artist from the sub-continent who adds up the impression of space, density, volume and the reality of matter, which transforms an abstract thought into a material fact.

The mammoth book “The Holy Sinner: Sadequain” recently published, is a tribute and celebration of this Pakistani artist's vitality, innovation, restless fervor and immense amount of energy. This book launched as the third stage of a monumental project with the same title is possibly the largest art project in the sub-continent to pay tribute to a single artist under the aegis of Mohatta Palace Museum. The first stage of the project was an exhibition of paintings of Sadequain under the same title and the second stage of the project; a black and white catalogue of Sadequain's work was launched last year. The fourth stage of the project will consist of four documentaries; both in Urdu and English language and one special feature film would be produced about the internationally recognized artist.

The book of about 700 pages, weighing 12 kg, includes reproduction of some 400 of Sadequain's creations, supported by an anthology of critical commentaries by the artist's contemporaries and journalists including renowned artistic figures and critics. It contains essays on the great artist and plates of his paintings and sketches. The sections in the book consist of Photographic Essay, Critical Approaches, Recollections, Reproductions, Catalogue, Pictures at an Exhibition, Rubaiyat, Photo Epilogue, Afterward, Life and Works. The book is largest monograph in the region complied and produced to pay unprecedented tribute to a single artist, setting a new trend for paying tributes to artists in South Asia.

Some of the themes of the paintings in the book are 'A stranger in paradise', 'Endless purgatory', 'Rhapsody in Blue', 'Wheel in fire', 'A long day', 'Of human bondage' also included in bold form the poetic verses of Ghalib, Iqbal and Faiz.

The book is primarily based on the famous exhibition of paintings of Sadequain titled, “The Holy Sinner: Sadequain.” which ended about a year ago and was by far the largest-attended and longest-running exhibition in the history of Pakistani art. Salima Hashmi, daughter of the late poet Faiz Ahmad Faiz and Hameed Haroon, proprietor of Dawn Publications were the co-curators of the groundbreaking exhibition. The exhibition, featuring more than 200 non-calligraphic works of the Amroha-born artist, was held at Mohatta Palace Museum and it remained open for approximately one year.
The exhibition was attended by more than 90,000 art lovers at a cost of Rs100 each who saw rare paintings and murals by Sadequain whose commercial worth, at a low estimate, was more than Rs500 million.

“Saga of Labor”
Portion of the Mural at Mangla Dam – largest mural in Pakistan 200 ft x 70 ft

Sadequain was an untraditional and self-made, self-taught painter and calligrapher who, created mysterious and mystic environment with his bold and uninhibited use of media and lines had a cult like following in his own lifetime. His unique style, whether pertaining to his paintings or calligraphy, was widely referred to as “Khat-e-Sadequain-e” primarily evolved during his stay at a Karachi seaside desert called Gadani. The Holy Sinner: Sadequain contains over 400 of his series of drawings, paintings, and murals, each representing a different phase of his career and depicting his unique strokes, style, and color schemes. It was at Gadani that Sadequain observed the wild growth of cactus in the scorching heat of desert where water was scarce and conditions were harshest. Yet the cactus grew tall, shooting upwards in defiance of all odds. The powerful symbol of defiant cactus transcends throughout Sadequain’s work and creates a lasting impression on the observer.

The exhibition was a rare opportunity for the viewers because Sadequain, who became a virtual household word for his calligraphic works did not exhibit his abstract paintings during the last days of his life and of course the large number of murals that he painted were dedicated to specific locations only. Hameed Haroon described very aptly as follows: “Sadequain's symbols are part-calligraphic strokes, part-sacred standards or alams that first emerged in the eighth century as the symbols of the armies of Shi'ite Islam, perhaps most visible as representations of allegorical virtue in the annual Moharram ritual following the Karbala massacre; part Sufic tributes to the son-in-law of the Prophet Mohammad, the martyred Ali, whose horned alif in the Kufic script provokes a militancy of sentiment and a plea for transformation based, ironically enough, on the fundamentals of early Islam.”

The paintings in the exhibition were loaned by a virtual who is who of the Pakistani elite. In his lifetime Sadequain hardly ever sold his paintings to individuals. As an ironic twist of circumstances he is perhaps the only artist with the distinction that his work is openly copied and sold for handsome profits by his imitators. Recently two news stories were printed in local papers, which testify, in the most unconventional manner, to the great stature of Sadequain. Both news stories were related to burglars, one in which a house belonging to one of the prominent artists in Karachi was broken in and the thieves got away with jewelry and other petty items, and the other incident involved the house of a well to do citizen where the stolen items included only the paintings by Sadequain.

Paintings on display at the Mohatta Palace Museum

The book, The Holy Sinner: Sadequain, includes drawings series titled, Cacti series, the Sun series, Exposition series, Cobweb series, etc. A word about the Cobweb series is appropriate, because it was created during the turbulent times of 1960s and the drawings depict men and women, even the building structures immobilized by cobwebs as though in decay and transgressing instead of marching on the rocky road to the peaks of perfection.

The paintings in The Holy Sinner: Sadequain, represent various themes such as man’s struggle against natural odds, mother and child, still life figures from the early life of the artist and many others. The centerpiece of the book is its treatment of the famous mural by Sadequain commissioned for the State Bank of Pakistan. The mural titled “The Treasures of Time” depicts evolution of mankind and traces the history of great scholars, philosophers, scientists, mathematicians, poets, and writers. It is said that the mural became a turning point in the intellectual development of Sadequain. Hameed Haroon noted that from this onwards, his intellectual force entered the world of Ovid, the romance of Alexander and the Amroha-spun tales of ancient Greece and Rome, leading to a unique fusion in Pakistan's art history.

Excerpted from The Holy Sinner: Sadequain

Edited by Abdul Hamid Akhund, Farida Munavarjahan Said and Zohra Yusuf
Mohatta Palace Museum, Hatim Alvi Road, Clifton, Karachi-75600
Tel/Fax: 021-5837669.
ISBN 969-8100-17-2
Rs15,000, 602pp, Weight 12 kg
For additional information about The Holy Sinner: Sadequain or the rare paintings and calligraphies of Sadequain, please contact Salman Ahmad at sahmad1@san.rr.com.