KARACHI, Nov 22: A cultural evening was held on Wednesday to celebrate the genius of Bashir Mirza. The venue was the Acropolis in Clifton.

The programme included the presentation of The Last of The Bohemians. Bashir Mirza, a book by Marjorie Hussain and the launch of Merck Marker’s annual calendar.

Marjorie Husain’s book “The Last of The Bohemians: Bashir Mirza” highlights the multidimensional personality of the artist. The book describes the way B.M. felt at home in Karachi which was his kind of town and how the city of Karachi unleashed Bashir Mirza’s creativity. The book is splashed with his brilliant, original and uncompromising strokes.

Bashir Mirza, called B.M. by friends, a graduate from National College of Arts, Lahore, was a pioneer of modern art in Pakistan. Bold, innovative and extremely talented.

He held his first exhibition in Karachi in 1963. He received the country’s highest award for art. ‘The President’s Pride of Performance’. The artist’s unique ability to manipulate “Line” in art was greatly appreciated in a portfolio of drawings in 1967. These drawings, a set of ten prints, known as “Portrait of Pakistan” which highlights the beauty of the ethnic faces in the form of marvelous pencil drawings.

These portfolios of prints are enormously popular even forty years after their creation. The late Bashir Mirza’s “Portrait of Pakistan”, still fresh and compelling, became the inspiration for the Merck Calendar 2007.

Guests at the calendar launch included politicians, diplomats, members of the business community and artists. Immediately after the calendar display, the author personally signed copies of her latest book. the proceeds from the sale of the book will be given to charity. The guests then moved on to the right side of the hall where the actual paintings of Bashir Mirza contributed by friends and admirers of B.M. were on exhibition for the occasion.