Art patron Jalal Uddin Ahmed eulogised at exhibition of Jamil Naqsh’s artworks

The Jamil Naqsh Museum in collaboration with the Fomma Trust paid tribute to Jalal Uddin Ahmed at a book launch and art exhibition of architect and calligrapher Jamil Naqsh on Wednesday.

The book titled ‘Jamil Naqsh’ has all 106 paintings of Jamil showcased in the exhibition. The Fomma Trust said it had published the book as a service to the art community so that it could be enshrined forever into a legacy.

Jamil Naqsh’s son Cezanne Naqsh said his father was a painter of form and inspired of the form of Arabic letters. He also exploited pictorial aspects of those letters.

Cezanne recalled that in 2016, sitar maestro Imdad Hussain passed away who was a dear friend of his father. There was no media coverage on his demise and then Jamil paid tribute to the maestro, he added.

Ahmed, the speaker said, was a father figure of the art community who dedicated all his life for the promotion of arts in Pakistan.

The event was told that initially, Jamil donated all his calligraphic paintings to Ahmed as the latter wanted to have a museum of modern art in Pakistan. “But unfortunately that idea didn’t materialise,” Cezanne said, adding that then Ahmed returned those artworks.

“Today we are displaying all those 106 paintings which were returned by Jalal Uddin to Jamil Naqsh.”

“Fomma is a private sector organization, whose objective is to promote art work – the creative art in Pakistan,” said Fomma Chairman Ejaz Ahmed. He added that they had published many monographs, books on various artists amd architects. The calligraphic paintings in the exhibition were presented by Jamil to Fomma.

He remarked that Ahmed was a founder trustee of Fomma. “We have documented all the works of artists in a big compilation, which is almost hundreds of hours of all the art shows that were held in Pakistan for the last 50 or 60 years,” he said.