A man of many parts, Ali Imam (1924-2002) is best celebrated as a history maker who steered the modernist initiative in Karachi as a principal of the Central Institute of Arts and Crafts (CIAC) and as curator, dealer and mentor at large to artists, buyers, collectors and connoisseurs who gathered regularly at his famed art hub, the Indus Gallery.

Amongst the first generation Pakistani artists, Ali Imam was born in Narsingpur in Madhya Pradesh in 1924. He took evening classes at the Nagpur School of Art and the Sir J.J. School of Arts, Bombay in the early ’40s and went on to complete his intermediate from Allahabad in 1946. Painting in his spare time continued whilst studying at Gordon College, Rawalpindi.

After graduating from the Punjab University in 1949 he joined the Communist Party as a full time worker. Eventually resigning from active politics in ’52 Imam took charge of the art departments at Lawrence College, Ghora Gali, Murree and later Sadiq Public School, Bahawalpur, where he taught painting and art history. Sensitive to the surrounding beauty and old city architecture his early art centred on street scenes and landscapes of Murree and Bahawalpur.

Ali Imam wore the multiple hats of artist, teacher and owner of the celebrated Indus Gallery where he became the arbiter of authenticity and the index of excellence besides working as a chronicler of Pakistani art

During those years as founder member of The Lahore Art Circle, he and his likeminded fellow artists Marium Shah, Razzia Feroze, Moyenne Najmi, A.J. Shemza, Ahmed Parvez and Sheikh Safdar held exhibitions in Lahore, Murree and Karachi. Possessing an inquiring mind soon his hunger for advanced knowledge and the learning experience of exposure to the galleries, museums and cultural life specific to art capitals prompted him to go to abroad.

Imam’s London sojourn was spread between day jobs and evening classes at St Martin School of Art (1959-60) London and Hammer Smith College of Art (1962-63). The London Group evolved when Parvez, Shemza, Murtaza Bashir and Safiuddin Ahmed joined him to exhibit together at the Woodstock Gallery, London.

Ali Imam, Karachi (2000)

Marjorie Husain in her monograph on Ali Imam reveals that on seeing the exhibition art critic G.M. Butcher was quick to notice “tendencies towards the future of painting, not only in Pakistan, but throughout the newly emerging countries of Islam from Morocco to Indonesia.” Of Imam’s later work Butcher remarked, “He has made creditable progress in learning what it means to be a painter. This in spite of the fact that he is essentially an intellectual.”

Working assiduously but remaining extremely critical of his work, Imam struggled to take “that visionary flight which is the essence of creativity.” An excerpt from Hussain’s monograph, a quote of Imam, makes poignant reading. He says “I consider my life, with Paris and London, libraries and books, archaeology and history at my feet, and wonder what happened to me? Why did I not grow? Did I grow? And if not, why not? My friends and acquaintances think that I am a very knowledgeable person and that I should be creating works of art of a higher discipline, but somehow or the other, the muses of creativity never touched me. Somehow or the other I got lost in the muses of the creativity of others, and in the process of collecting other peoples knowledge I became so overawed and influenced by them that my own process of creativity could not flower as it should have.”

Unconsciously Imam the history-maker, whom Karachites later become so familiar with, began evolving at this critical juncture. He was acutely aware of his search for a dynamic personal idiom, the quality of his work and how it fell short of his own aspirations. This realisation forced him to change the course of his life. Recalling this phase he is known to have said, “I decided to come back to Pakistan and be helpful to those who are more gifted and more talented than me and to create a climate of work where I could be a sort of guidance and help …”

White on white, Indus Gallery, (2000)

In hindsight it appears that the post of the principal of the CIAC was just the kind of challenge Imam’s self-discovery and newly formed sensibility needed in order to establish his individuality. Settling down in Karachi was difficult for a blunt and candid person like him but the strong foundation of modernist thought acquired during his London years hit fertile ground when he set about revising the outmoded the CIAC curriculum with thought-provoking lectures, slideshows and discussions on art appreciation, art philosophy and history.

In his brief tenure, 1967-1970, the student body swelled from a few students to 150. Numbers aside it was essentially the quality of education imparted then that actually made the difference. The best and the brightest from that lot are today excelling as artists, designers, art directors, critics and writers. Some of the leading lights include Nahid Raza, Noorjehan Bilgrami, Tabinda Chinoy, Niilofer Farrukh, Rumana Hussain, Shakeel Siddiqi, Shakeel Ismail, Mansur Salim, Seema Tahir Khan and Imran Mir, etc.

With Ustad Allah Bukhsh (1973)

The blast of fresh air that blew through the CIAC eventually quadrupled into a new wave with the inception of Indus Gallery. Now the breadth of Imam’s art knowledge, acumen and critical sense was shared with a much wider art hungry public willing to be groomed. Emerging and exhibiting artists’ mingled with the country’s literati and corporate fraternity.
Poets like Faiz Ahmed Faiz, scientist Salimuzzaman Siddiqui, and artists, Ahmed Parvez, Sadequain, Tassadaq Sohail, M.F. Hussain, Francis Newton Souza, were just a few of the many luminaries who were part of the gallery meetings and sittings.

One such visitor, an art connoisseur and prominent media personality writes in his personal memoir (published in the Pakistan Art Review) that the gallery was “the unsung capital of the Karachi art scene for the last quarter of a century.” He remembers Ali Imam as “a Merlin who had no reservations about imparting his skill and knowledge to those of us who buzzed around him like infected mosquitoes from the swamps of martial culture spread outside.”

Alongside exhibiting and creating a market for artists like Jamil Naqsh, Sadequain, Chughtai, Allah Buksh, Haji Sharif, Ajmal Hussain, Mansur Rahi, Laila Shahzada, Imam created a platform for new entrants like Lubna Agha and Mashkoor Raza and many others of their ilk waiting in the wings to be discovered, launched and nurtured.

In retrospect, Indus Gallery was an idea whose time had come. From the early nudge and shove it gave to the nascent art community to the modernist enclave it blossomed into its contribution as a platform to introduce, foster and maintain art standards contributed to the quality of art produced in that period.

Lawrence College, Murree (1952)

An intellectual with a scholarly bent it is surprising that Imam did not take to writing a book of the era he piloted with such passion. In her introduction Marjorie Husain mentions that he eventually did consent to a monograph to be written in collaboration with her but with Imam’s passage she had to continue singlehandedly. Fortunately, remembering that he had spoken his thoughts on tapes preserved in Lutfullah Khan’s archives she was able to listen to them and gain access to his thoughts.

Unfortunately another storehouse of information left by Ali Imam is yet to be fully utilised by the public. Comprising clippings on Pakistani art, originally preserved in ordinary files, the Ali Imam archive is a unique repository covering work of over 500 Pakistani artists over the last three decades of the 20th century. It is now part of the Fomma Trust archival collection in PDF format to enable their viewing on multiple devices. The archives open a window to a specific art scene — if researchers and art history students care to look.

After a life well spent, Ali Imam was laid to rest on May 24, 2002.

Published in Dawn, Sunday Magazine, July 5th, 2015

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