Ajaz Anwar
Ajaz Anwar is a distinguished painter of Pakistan. He was a teacher at National College of Arts Lahore. His watercolour paintings show the grandeur of the old buildings and the cultural life in Lahore.
Life
Born in Ludhiana in 1946, his father was a cartoonist who apparently had stirred his passion from childhood and from whom he drew his inspiration. After obtaining his M.A. in Fine Arts and a Gold medal in 1967, he completed his Ph.D in Muslim architecture, in Turkey in 1978 and proceeded to do a course on Conservation of Cultural Property at UNESCO, Rome in 1977. From 1972 he has been lecturing until he became Professor and Director of Art Gallery NCA, Lahore to date.
Old Buildings
Old buildings of Lahore city are the main theme of his paintings. He has tried to preserve those buildings in his paintings which are replaced by new style buildings or they are crumbling. These are the buildings of old Lahore, not all are historical but common homes of common people are the centre of his attention. Natural lively colours make the buildings alive.
People in his Paintings
Although buildings are the main theme of his paintings and people are just there to make a normal life but the characters he used in his paintings are the quintessential of the life of Lahore or Punjab. The characters are faceless but they represent the common people found in the bazars: A Tonga rider, women walking in the bazar, children playing, milkman, old persons talking,and sellers of all kinds. Ajaz Anwar not only preserved our buildings he has also preserved our daily life too.
Comments on Work
“In my paintings, I highlight the parts of Lahore that must be preserved. I remove skyscrapers and instead incorporate tongas and sweetmeat shops,” he said in an interview. The main focus of his paintings are not human figures. “The human figures are only used to bring these crumbling buildings to life. People are not important aspects of my art because they are born and reborn whereas these buildings, once destroyed, will be lost forever.”
Ajaz Anwar is the recipient of the President’s “Pride of Performance in Painting” in 1997.
