A.R. Nagori

'It is difficult to stare into a Nagori canvas, and not be moved by his singular mysterious, imaginative genius. There is a painting of his bathed half in his signature blood red, half black, and in the centre Jinnah and Gandhi are standing side by side, with Gandhi’s arm around Jinnah’s shoulder. Schism is depicted in the painting through a jagged line running through it. Other symbols from mythology lurk in the painting, talking of the Hindu-Muslim rupture, but the faces of Jinnah and Gandhi are smiling.' (S. Akhtar, 'The loss of a free thinker: A. R. Nagori', Dawn, 17 January 2011, https://www.dawn.com/news/599397/copyright-the-estate-of-a-r-nagori) 

The current lot, powerfully described above, captures the pioneering and fearless practice of Pakistani artist Abdul Rahim Nagori. Born in 1938 in Junagarh, in an undivided India, Nagori studied Fine Arts at the University of the Punjab, Lahore in the early 1960s. Upon graduating, he moved to Sindh, and founded the Fine Arts department at Jamshoro University, remaining its head until 1995.  

Nagori is known for his socio-political works, which were a direct and profound response to the injustices of the world around him. In 1982, his Anti-Militarism and Violence exhibition in Pakistan was censored and subsequently banned by the martial law regime, and over the following years, Nagori held a number of important anti-establishment exhibitions, fearlessly protesting the abuses of power, crime and inequality he witnessed in society. 

In the current lot, the image of Muhammad Ali Jinnah and Mahatma Gandhi, based on a famous 1944 photograph during their talks on the subject of Partition, is set upon a ground of red and black. The bloodstained dividing line, representative of the India Pakistan border, and the powerful symbols of the charkha and Kali, the goddess of destruction, is a contemporary response to the enduring ruptures and violent legacy of Partition.

Reflecting on the continued relevance of socio-political art, the painter's daughter, Amber Romasa Nagori, notes: 'A.R. Nagori was not ahead of his time... it is the rest of us who were behind the times... He was a man of vision, and instead of there being less of a need for men like him, there has never been a greater need.' (A. R. Nagori, 'The Artist and the Society: Nagori, the Rebel Artist', 14 Janyary 2022, https://thekarachicollective.com/the-artist-and-the-society-nagori-the-rebel-artist/)