April 26, 2003

On a recent visit to Karachi, the couple exhibited their paintings, Mansur Rahi at the Chawkandi Art and Hajra Mansur at the Canvas Gallery.

They spoke freely about their concerns regarding art education in the country — a subject both take very seriously, writes Marjorie Husain

“A good artwork should combine creativity, a perfect control of the technical principles and mastery of the media.” So says Mansur Rahi, one of Pakistan’s most distinguished painters and a teacher of note. Speaking to Mansur and his wife Hajra, one discovers they are in total accord as to the problems facing young artists today.

“Art education has suffered chiefly through lack of experienced teachers. Promising students are taken on as teachers by art institutes before they have matured enough to develop an art philosophy and the circle becomes increasingly smaller. Generally speaking, professionalism is missing among educationists and the student comes out of school after four years lacking proper guidance.

“By cutting corners and practicing a lot of rhetoric, he prepares to take his place in the art world, happy in his ignorance. The criteria are to sell paintings like commodities and gain ‘name and fame’. Unfortunately, the modern art trends and their sources are not understood, superficial ideas are ‘picked up’ without making sense. Students want to brush aside basic art ‘rules’ without first knowing what they are.”

Both artists had settled in Karachi in the 1960s, Hajra from the Lucknow College of Art, and Rahi from the Dhaka School of Art where Zainul Abedin and Kibria had been his teachers. Affable Rahi soon made a circle of friends among the artists and conducted art classes at the Karachi Arts Council. Hajra and her sister Rabia Zuberi were dismayed to find the city lacking art educational facilities and started teaching students at their home. There were 15 girls in the first batch, and they would spill out on to — in those days — quiet streets of Nazimabad for their drawing class.

It was an exciting time; Bashir Mirza opened the first art gallery on Kutchery Road and began promoting the work of local artists. The Karachi School of Art — the city’s first art school — opened against all advice, but with Professor Shakir Ali’s blessing, in Nazimabad in 1964. Through the years it has produced numerous well known artists: Lubna Lateef, Mushkoor Raza, Abdul Hai, Athar Jamal, Riffat Alvi and others, too numerous to name. Rahi’s influence was enormous and although he has long made his home near the mountains away from Karachi, it continues to be strongly apparent in the work of younger artists.

Rahi spoke of Zainul Abedin as his friend and teacher and Kibria as his ‘inspiration, and reminisced about life in the ‘60s.

“I was involved with the KSA and also painting, it was a tremendously fruitful time. Friends used to visit the school and hold discussions with the students, and their education was the focus of our time. Once Zain brought me a message from my parents in Dhaka, who thought it was high time I returned home and got married. My ideas were a bit different. ‘Don’t you think Hajra looks right for me?’ I asked Zain who was quick to agree but I had to convince Hajra’s parents.

“First I consulted Rabia, who was very sympathetic and advised me as to how to approach their parents. With all the formality I took my proposal to Hajra’s mother who laid down three conditions, these were: learn Urdu, make a name for yourself, get your own house. It took me three years but I managed all of it. My close friends were Mansur Aye, Jamil Naqsh and Mobinul Azim, and it was quite a news in art circles — Rahi’s getting married!”

During all this discussion Hajra sat smiling and detached, insisting she had known nothing about it at the time.

After their marriage Rahi started painting a series of ‘Queens’. These were beautiful studies, rendered in a modern, cubist style, of women wearing crowns, all bearing an uncanny resemblance to Hajra. A legend in the art circles, Hajra and Rahi have lived happily together, in perfect harmony for over three decades.

National award-winning artists with distinguished reputations, they have been in the public eye since the 1960s. Together they are a united team, each highly appreciative of the other’s output. Incredibly, neither has influenced the other’s viewpoint in the slightest way. Mansur Rahi is known as a neo-cubist, Hajra Mansur is a romantic, rooted in tradition, and both are accredited with countless exhibitions in Pakistan and abroad.

Rahi and other Dhaka-trained teachers initiated an interest in watercolour landscape painting in Karachi that was on a par with the Punjab landscape school of art inspired from Lahore by Khalid Iqbal. Countless superb watercolourists have emerged from the KSA from Abdul Hai to Zaheen Ahmed and the tradition continues.

Hajra and Rahi come from an era of friendship between artists. There were few buyers of artworks and artists painted to gain respect of their peers as well as to please themselves. There was a lot of discussion and analyzing each other’s work with, they recall, genuine feeling. A painting praised by Shakir Ali or Zainul Abedin was its own reward and the pressure to fill a demand in the market hadn’t arrived.

“Today there are numerous galleries and the owners should be able to differentiate between good and bad work. Discussions on the subject with experienced, established artists, of whom there are a considerable number, would help. Bad paintings are being bought from galleries because of a lack of knowledge of the technical skills involved in the pursuit of art. There is no rationale regarding prices. It is the duty of the galleries to create a ‘norm’, not to tell artists how or what to paint, but to guide buyers as well as aspiring artists,” said the couple.

Rahi takes ‘workshops’ for selected students in his Islamabad studio several times a week. Hajra prefers to devote her time to painting and has a studio of her own. Using an oriental ‘wash’ method, she paints in acrylics, having several paintings in process at the same time. Her romantic, classic style harks back to the courts of the Moghul Emperors, with ornate elements of eastern design, but her technique is steeped in the present.

She commands a bewitching luminosity of surface that has made her one of the most popular of the country’s painters today. Of late, Rahi has brought changes in his work while remaining constant to the root style of analytic cubism. His subject is contemplative; he speaks of his work as ‘purely structural with formal, bold forms taking human shape’. Mountains reveal forms in the rocks that will remain entwined forever.

Describing his unique style, Rahi talks of “Rayonism — referring to rays of light, forms and colours creating ‘a new dimension of illusion.” Rahi spoke of his advanced study research in Japan, France and Germany and of the success of Hajra’s exhibitions in foreign countries. They enjoy talking to each other, discuss numerous subjects amongst themselves, and are in total accord. A statement by one includes the other. They exchange glances and smiles and look to each other for confirmation of an opinion.

In recent years they have made several visits to the United States where their two children have their homes. In the process they took the opportunity to gauge the art ambience in various states. Rahi regularly lectures and conducts workshops in art colleges on these trips, Hajra paints and declares she is disappointed with the general standard of art.

“I’m talking about galleries not museums. Compared with Paris and London and what I have seen in the galleries the work appears to lack feeling. There is no apparent enjoyment of art or colour or the medium. I find it very disappointing. Of course the museums are full of beautiful works.”

In a programme enjoyed by many, Rahi addressed art enthusiasts throughout Pakistan through a regular morning TV spot on art appreciation. Altogether he focused on nearly forty individual painters. “I based each programme on one artist at a time and explained his work. I remember Bashir Mirza telling me: ‘You have taught me things about my work I wasn’t aware of’. Now there is talk of bringing the programme back on TV and extending the time, all this in the near future.

“In Karachi I can see a lot of activity and artists coming up. Those outside Karachi have a problem, especially sculptors because it is so difficult to transport their work for exhibition and there is no official help for artists unless they have influence. Still the work continues”

It was time to go and off they went smiling to live their dreams: Rahi with sculpted forms carved from the rocks with a brush; Hajra, in a world without violence.