BIOGRAPHY
Zahoor ul Akhlaq (4 February 1941 – 18 January 1999) was a pioneering artist from Pakistan. He is known for his approach to painting, sculpture, design and architecture, as well as his teaching at the NCA (National College of Arts) in Lahore.
BACKGROUND AND FAMILY LIFE
Born in Delhi, India in 1941, he was the eldest in a family of 11 children. His family moved to Lahore after the independence of Pakistan in 1947, eventually settling in Karachi, Pakistan. Akhlaq attended the Sindh Madrassah (now called Sindh Madressatul Islam University) as a young boy and went to study art in Lahore at the Mayo School of Arts (now called National College of Arts) back in 1958. The well-known Pakistani painter Shakir Ali was teaching art there as a professor back then. Shakir Ali encouraged him greatly in his art studies. Zahoor graduated from this college in 1962 and he then started teaching at the same college in the Fine Arts Department. Shakir Ali heavily influenced him to learn the Cubist style and other modern ideas of that time.
In 1971, he married Sheherezade Alam, a potter, and the couple had two daughters, Jahanara, (1974–1999), Nurjahan (born in 1979).
EDUCATION
- 1958–62, National Diploma in Fine Art; National College of Arts – Lahore, Pakistan
- 1966–67, Post graduate studies: Hornsey College of Art, London
- 1968–69, post graduate studies: Royal College of Arts, London
- 1987 -89, post doctoral studies: Fulbright Research Fellowship at the Yale Institute of Sacred Music; Religion and the Arts and at Yale School of Art, Yale University, United States.
SELECTED SHOWS
- 1964 National exhibition, Lahore
- 1962 Solo exhibition, Karachi National Exhibition, Rawalpindi
- 1963 ‘Communication Through Art’, Lahore, Karachi, Rawalpindi and Dhaka (Pakistan and Bangladesh)
- Solo exhibition, Karachi
- 1965 RCD Biennale, Tehran (Iran), 2nd position prize
- National exhibition of arts, Dhaka
- Solo exhibition, Art Galleries, Rawalpindi
- Joint exhibition, Ministry of Culture, Now York and Montreal
- 1967 Museum of Modern Arts; Paris Also four exhibitions in London and Oxford, England.
- 1969 Lahore Museum
- Post graduate show, Royal College of Art, London
- 1970 ‘Painting in Pakistan’, travelling exhibition, 26 countries
- 1974 Solo exhibition, Pakistan Arts Council, Karachi
- 1975 ‘Graphics In Pakistan’, Italy
- 1976 São Paulo Biennale (Brazil)
- 1981 Solo exhibition, Pakistan National Council of the Arts, Islamabad
- 1982 Hershorn Museum, Washington D.C.
- ‘Thirty Five Years of Painting in Punjab’, Lahore Asian Festival; Tokyo
- 1983 Represented Pakistan in Asian Festival of Art, Dhaka
- 1988 joint exhibition, Yale Institute of Sacred Music, Religion and the Arts, Yale University (USA)
- 1989 Solo exhibition, Yale University Solo exhibition, Galerie Mont Calm Hull, Canada
- Solo exhibitions at Rohtas Gallery, Islamabad in 1982, 1990, 1992
- Solo exhibitions at Chowkundi Gallery, Karachi, in 1986, 1990, 1991 and 1993
- Solo exhibition at The Ziggurat Gallery, Karachi, in 1990.
The contents of this page are sourced from Wikipedia article on 4 July 2020. The contents are available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license.
