KARACHI: Tassaduq Sohail, who died last year, was one of Pakistan’s foremost artists. They say he was a dreamer and his paintings often reflected a dream-like state, sometimes a surrealistic streak, where a bunch of disparate images combined to make a single scene. So, when one received an invitation that a Tassaduq Sohail gallery was being inaugurated at the National Museum of Pakistan on Saturday in which his more than 100 artworks would be on display for three days, one could not help but get excited about it.

The event was organised by the Culture Department of the Government of Sindh. One sincerely hopes that the department knows about the importance of displaying paintings made by masters, because it requires a great deal of research before putting them on view for art lovers.

Here, one must mention that the way the two floors were dotted with paintings of different artists, showed a lack of professionalism. If you are involving big names such as Tassaduq Sohail, Chitra Pritam and Iqbal Husain in an exhibition, you need to be a little more aesthetically pleasing with your presentation. Though one appreciates and acknowledges the effort put in by the people responsible for putting up the show, it would have held them in good stead if they had chosen fewer paintings so that the attendees could take time to see each artwork.

The gallery is on the first floor of the museum. It’s a smallish space with Sohail’s paintings hanging on the two facing walls.

The artworks have typical Sohail motifs: birds, animals, the female form and a dense forest. Sohail was known for creating a symbiotic ambience. The symbiosis is never there for a mere pursuit of beauty; it’s there to tell tales that the artist wanted others (read: his viewers) to see, and in certain cases, lend an ear to.

Published in Dawn, May 28th, 2018