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Lot Essay
Born in Malda, in pre-partition Bengal, in 1939, Mansur Rahi was a gifted child with an early interest in art. Moving to East Bengal with his family after Partition, he studied at the Government College of Arts and Crafts in Dhaka under the tutelage of prominent artists Mohammed Kibria and Abdul Razaq. Painter and activist Zainul Abedin, the principal of the institution, inspired Rahi to create with political purpose, and his work soon started reflecting his sociopolitical environment, particularly the violence and trauma associated with the Partition of Bengal and the natural disasters that devastated the region.
Refined through an initial period of stylistic experimentation, the semi-abstract idiom that Rahi is now well-known for draws from the Cubism of Picasso and Braque while retaining a strong South Asian sensibility inspired by artists like Sadequain. “There are two sides to his art: the pastoral rural scenes in watercolor (a result of his Bengali heritage) and the suffering humanity rendered in a conventional, semi-cubist format” (M.N. Sirhandi, Contemporary Painting in Pakistan, Lahore, 1992, p. 155). This 1971 painting is one of the artist’s most important works in the latter category, completed in the wake of the hugely destructive Bhola cyclone that hit East Pakistan the year before, and of the upheavals and violence of the independence struggle that led to the creation of Bangladesh that year.
An early masterpiece, this painting is marked by Rahi’s distinctive style and his passion for activism, peeling back the social, political and geographical complexities of tragedy to reveal its raw human cost which the artist believes is its raas or essence. He explained, “I try to capture the fragrance instead of the flower and instead of painting a beggar, I look for ways to present poverty in its greater essence” (Artist statement, ‘Exhibition: Rahi’s work inspires new generation of artists’, The Express Tribune website, 3 December 2015, accessed July 2021). With remarkable restraint and profound awareness, Rahi expresses trauma using a series of stylized faces and a muted palette. His figures, with their mouths frozen mid-wail and their eyes cast upwards to an unforgiving sun, seem trapped between earth and sky with no one to turn to in their time of greatest need.
As a student, Rahi was invited to exhibit his works at the Karachi Arts Council, and moved there in 1964 to begin his career as an artist and teacher at the Karachi School of Art. Since then, the artist’s work has won him international recognition and been shown in solo and group exhibitions in Pakistan, Bangladesh, Japan, Iran, Turkey, India, China, England, France, Germany and the United States. Rahi was awarded First Prize at the All Pakistan National Exhibitions in 1969 and 1981, the Shakir Ali Award in 1987, and the President’s Pride of Performance Award in 2008. After cementing his place as a respected painter in Pakistan’s artistic community, Rahi moved to Islamabad with his wife, the artist Hajra Mansur, where he still lives among the Margalla Hills. With a practice spanning seven decades, Rahi’s work and teaching continues to inspire young artists in Pakistan and around the world.
Refined through an initial period of stylistic experimentation, the semi-abstract idiom that Rahi is now well-known for draws from the Cubism of Picasso and Braque while retaining a strong South Asian sensibility inspired by artists like Sadequain. “There are two sides to his art: the pastoral rural scenes in watercolor (a result of his Bengali heritage) and the suffering humanity rendered in a conventional, semi-cubist format” (M.N. Sirhandi, Contemporary Painting in Pakistan, Lahore, 1992, p. 155). This 1971 painting is one of the artist’s most important works in the latter category, completed in the wake of the hugely destructive Bhola cyclone that hit East Pakistan the year before, and of the upheavals and violence of the independence struggle that led to the creation of Bangladesh that year.
An early masterpiece, this painting is marked by Rahi’s distinctive style and his passion for activism, peeling back the social, political and geographical complexities of tragedy to reveal its raw human cost which the artist believes is its raas or essence. He explained, “I try to capture the fragrance instead of the flower and instead of painting a beggar, I look for ways to present poverty in its greater essence” (Artist statement, ‘Exhibition: Rahi’s work inspires new generation of artists’, The Express Tribune website, 3 December 2015, accessed July 2021). With remarkable restraint and profound awareness, Rahi expresses trauma using a series of stylized faces and a muted palette. His figures, with their mouths frozen mid-wail and their eyes cast upwards to an unforgiving sun, seem trapped between earth and sky with no one to turn to in their time of greatest need.
As a student, Rahi was invited to exhibit his works at the Karachi Arts Council, and moved there in 1964 to begin his career as an artist and teacher at the Karachi School of Art. Since then, the artist’s work has won him international recognition and been shown in solo and group exhibitions in Pakistan, Bangladesh, Japan, Iran, Turkey, India, China, England, France, Germany and the United States. Rahi was awarded First Prize at the All Pakistan National Exhibitions in 1969 and 1981, the Shakir Ali Award in 1987, and the President’s Pride of Performance Award in 2008. After cementing his place as a respected painter in Pakistan’s artistic community, Rahi moved to Islamabad with his wife, the artist Hajra Mansur, where he still lives among the Margalla Hills. With a practice spanning seven decades, Rahi’s work and teaching continues to inspire young artists in Pakistan and around the world.