His elder brother, a signboard painter, was the first inspiration to draw and paint. A seasoned calligrapher and versatile painter, Wajid Yaqoot was born with an eye to adore beauty and a passion to draw. His brother tried to keep him away from the workshop so that he can focus on studies at school.

“I was in grade six when my brother went abroad and it gave me an opportunity to work in his small workshop. I would send him regularly the images of jobs done for his clients. Working independently at a tender age gave me a lot of confidence and my skills got improved within few years,” he recalls.

“My skills convinced the elder brother and he took me to the senior calligrapher Hafiz Muhammad Yousaf Sadeedi who taught me the fundamentals of traditional calligraphy in a strict discipline,” he adds.

Yousaf Sadeedi left for Saudi Arabia and handed me over to Khursheed Alam Khursheed Raqam where I learnt for three and a half years,” he says.

“I am grateful to another teacher of mine, the late Maqbool Ahmad, a portrait painter who helped a great deal in my grooming as an illustrator and painter,” he acknowledges.

To earn his living he worked as an illustrator and commercial designer since 2000, when computers dominated the market leaving no space for the designers working manually.

Shrinking space for designers working manually compelled Wajid Yaqoot to venture into painting palette knife landscapes which became his hallmark and a big financial success.

Except for two-year training at the Lahore Arts Council where he practiced drawing, he is a self taught painter who considers the works of western masters he came across through books as his teachers.

“My landscapes were in demand and I had to raise a family, so I couldn’t afford to keep them for a display. I have painted more than 1,500 landscapes but could not hold a body of works for a single solo show,” he claims.

Same is the case with his calligraphic works which he creates only for selected clients.

“I never sent my calligraphic works to galleries because they got copied very easily. I restricted myself only to the private collectors,” he says.

On the other hand, he is generously teaching calligraphy to young aspirants at his studio free of cost.

“I do it as a religious duty following the tradition of my mentors who taught calligraphy to their students including myself without charging a single rupee,” he says.

Working for almost three decades he has numerous calligraphic works to his credit including the works executed at the shrines of Sehwan Sharif, Imam Bari and Aiwan-i-Iqbal Lahore.

He is one of the very few painters who paints the domes of private houses and mosques employing elements of calligraphy and naqashi.

“I disagree with the modern trends of calligraphy deviating from the fundamentals of classical calligraphy which makes the text unreadable,” he believes.

He works with the sharp skills reflecting the styles of master traditional calligraphers he worked with. Employing multiple layers of text he creates the illusions of perspective and depth in the calligraphic works.

His signature style landscapes rendered in palette knife technique are popular for their intricate details especially the reflections in the water which are mostly composed in the foreground of the painting.

Published in Dawn, September 9th, 2018