Sadequain: Beyond space, across mediums

Syed Sadequain Ahmed Naqvi, commonly known as Sadequain, was one of the most prolific artists of 20th century South Asia. He was born in 1930 in the city of Amroha during the colonial British Raj, in what would become Uttar Pradesh, India. After the 1947 Partition, the 18-year-old Sadequain migrated to Pakistan, adopting the newly formed country as his own. By 1960, he had become a highly decorated artist in Pakistan, and was invited to work in France. His time in Paris generated international recognition for his drawings. His permanent return to Karachi in 1967 led him to increasingly center South Asian Muslim aesthetics in his work.

Though he is often referred to as the greatest Pakistani artist to date, Sadequain’s art crossed political borders as seamlessly as it crossed mediums. His calligraphy, paintings, drawings, murals, and poetry sit firmly within the legacies of South Asian Muslim cultures, but he also produced remarkable pieces in the European style of post-cubism. His works for European audiences often include hidden or inconspicuous Islamic religious motifs. And in numerous calligraphies of Qur’anic verses, he includes English translations.

Sadequain was interested in broad social commentary as well. He saw the human condition as one of suffering, and strove to portray that in his work. It stands to reason that there is an autobiographical component to this perspective. He experienced great turmoil in his life: leaving Amroha after the Partition of South Asia; the sudden international acclaim from his time in Paris; and war and dictatorship in Pakistan. Recognition of these struggles sheds new light on his explorations of suffering, his identification with a pre-Partition Indian Muslim literature, and his changes of visual style.

Sadequain’s rise to international fame began while he was in Paris. Leaving Pakistan at the invitation of the French Committee of the International Association of Plastic Arts (F-CIPA), Sadequain spent roughly seven years (1960-67) based in Paris. In 1963, he opened many exhibitions in the U.S., U.K., and France, and in 1966, held an exhibition in Switzerland. He was received well by Western European and North American audiences, as demonstrated by the below list of newspaper coverage.

Sadequain is an exemplary case in examining the historic and cultural legacies of colonialism and their impact on artists. What enticed him to leave Pakistan, despite his favorable reception there? Why does this Karachi-published book have a section on “World Opinion,” instead of an evaluation of Sadequain on his own terms? And to what extent did this positive reception enable him to have the fortuitous career he was known for upon his return to Pakistan?

Above: Sadequain: Sketches and Drawings (Karachi: Editions Mystique, 1966). UC Berkeley Library collection.

Below: Sadequain, untitled sketch, 1966, ink on paper. Reproduced from Figurations Mystique, Sadequain 1966 (Lahore: Sadequain Foundation, 2018). UC Berkeley Library collection.

Above: Mystic Expressions: An Odyssey to Exaltation with Ghalib, Iqbal, Faiz, and Sadequain, ed. Salman Ahmed (Lahore: Topical Printers, 2011). UC Berkeley Library collection.

Upon his return to Karachi, Sadequain embarked on a project of illustrating verses by Mirza Ghalib, the outstanding Urdu poet of the 19th century. Between 1968 and 1969, Sadequain produced 50 such paintings, as well as calligraphies of the verses in his distinctive handwriting.

The above spread from the book Mystic Expressions, a collection of Sadequain’s work in response to major figures of Urdu literature, features a reproduction of the artist's engagement with Ghalib. The right side page shows a painting of a tortured figure wrapped in paper and emerging from an inkpot. The left-side page shows Sadequain’s calligraphy of a Ghalib couplet, under which is printed a transliteration and translation as well as an interpretation. It should be noted that this couplet is part of a longer ghazal (a lyric form in Arabic, Persian, Turkish, and Urdu poetry) and is the opening couplet of the Diwan-e-Ghalib (a collection of Ghalib’s ghazals). This work expresses themes of suffering and exemplifies Sadequain’s own reimagining of his stylistic forms after returning from Paris; i.e. the use of calligraphy and Urdu language literary tradition to communicate meaning in his art.

Above: Spread from Sadequain, Ghalib (Karachi: Elite Publishers Limited, 1969), internal folio, ink printed on paper. UC Berkeley Library collection.

This 1969 special folio edition reproduces Sadequain’s illustrations and calligraphies of couplets from the Diwan-e-Ghalib (a collection of ghazal poems by the mid-19th century Mughal-era poet Ghalib). The calligraphy of Ghalib’s verses in Sadequain’s distinctive calligraphic handwriting is on the outside of each folio, and the inside pages contain his ink wash illustrations.

Displayed here is the inside of the title folio. On the right-hand side is Sadequain’s portrait sketch of the poet Ghalib, who is seen smoking a pipe, writing a poem, and adorned with the clothing and accessories typical of imperial Mughal court-patronized poets. On the left is a short essay by Pakistani poet Faiz Ahmad Faiz (1911-84) on the relationship between the “imagined” in Ghalib’s poetry and its expression in Sadequain’s calligraphy and illustrations.

Below: Selected pages from Sadequain, Ghalib (Karachi: Elite Publishers Limited, 1969), internal folios. UC Berkeley Library collection.

Listen to the poem read aloud in the original Urdu:

Listen to the poem read aloud in English translation, by student curator Murtaza Hiraj:

Text of the translation:

Page 46 All is beautiful in this I am sure of myself, My religion for me is simply worship of myself, And so when I stare in self-surety’s mirror, I find more than just peace in the vision of myself. “I am nothing!”, what pride compels you to say this, You are great, why would you shy away from this? If I have made a transgression against etiquette, Then we have a suffocated culture, what else is this? To me, acclaim would be given by Sa’ib, Congratulations said by ‘Orfi or by Talib, Recognition for my calligraphy, if present, Given either from Shah Jehan or by Ghalib.

Page 47 Despite the cleric’s frenzy, he would have written a poem In that ultimate Diwan, he would have written a poem Were the esteemed Iqbal (God show mercy) alive today In my calligraphy’s grandeur, he would have written a poem “Dog-bitten” is what I consider myself Every review about me I write myself Leaving no work for friends or critics, Both eulogy and praise, I write myself When the traveler’s path is one of calligraphy And his gravestone bears his love of calligraphy If both mystics and slaves of wealth are envious Then what is he if not Prince of calligraphy?

Above: Khatt-e-Sadequain: Rules & Principles of Sadequain’s Calligraphy, ed. Khursheed Alam Gauhar Qalam (Lahore: Sang-e-Meel Publications, 2016). UC Berkeley Library collection. Showing: Details from Sadequain, Earth and Heavens, c. 1986, mural.

Sadequain was engaged in executing murals throughout his career. Before, during, and after his time abroad, Sadequain left his mark on public spaces in Pakistan. Above are reproductions of sections of his last mural, which he began working on in 1986 for the ceiling of Frere Hall, Karachi. His untimely death the following year, at age 57, left the mural forever incomplete.

The left page shows an abstract pictograph detail with some legible elements. Figures are shown reaching toward the Urdu words ilm-o-amal (knowledge and practice). Also visible are the Urdu decimal numbers 0 through 9, and Sadequain’s signature of ن, ق, ص. The right-hand page shows a cross section of the Earth in a space-like background, wrapped by the Arabic words “al-ard wa samawat” (Earth and heavens). This is commonly understood to be the mural’s title, and may be a reference to similar phrases in the Qur’an.