LAHORE: Two decades old venue of visual art, music and literature, the Nairang Art Gallery, having a popular café, has been temporarily closed and it has put on sale its artifacts on discounted rates. However, there are chances that the gallery will be revived soon.

Located along Jail Road, the gallery, established in 2003 by renowned architect Nayyar Ali Dada, is considered a modern version of the Pak Tea House. It has a collection of furniture, old masters’ prints and traditional chandeliers, lights and ravishing artifacts. The gallery has closed its doors until further notice and the café of the gallery has also been closed down. When asked about this development, Dada said the gallery and the café had been closed currently; however, they might be revived soon. He said the difficult decision of closing down the gallery was made on economic grounds as the gallery had to face massive losses during the Covid-19 restrictions and even after that.

He added that the gallery used to have meetings of writers, artists and art lovers and iconic writers like the late Intizar Hussain who used to lead a literary sitting at the gallery every week.

Many other writers and intellectuals also used to hang out at the gallery included IA Rehman, Masood Ashar, Shehzad Ahmad, Munnu Bhai, Ikramullah, Zahid Dar and many others. The literary sittings at the gallery were in a way a revival of Halqa Arbab-e-Zauq sittings.

The gallery in all these years hosted hundreds of art exhibitions by almost all the leading and young visual artists of Lahore and the country. The music section of the gallery was an exclusive one and the collection dated back to 1922. Many ardent music lovers used to visit the gallery to enjoy music, which was not available otherwise.

The gallery was a main gathering point not only for the artists but also for the members of the youth who used to frequently hang out at the Nairang Café. It was a main gathering point of Lahore’s art, music and literature fans.

When the gallery was launched, the basic idea was to set up a gallery not merely restricted to hang paintings on the walls but a place where the people from fine arts, music, literature, theatre and other branches of art could gather for discourse and discuss ideas as it used to happen during the times of Imtiaz Ali Taj, Feroze Nizami, Nasir Kazmi, Intizar Hussain and many others would used gather at Alhamra.

Published in Dawn, October 8th, 2022