Eminent painter Qudsia Nisar remembered

The recipient of the Presidential Pride of Performance Award in 2018, Qudsia Nisar, who was a preeminent painter of Pakistan, passed away in Islamabad on 27th April 2021, according to a statement issued by the media manager, CMC (Pvt.) Ltd.

She had been suffering from various ailments for the past several months in Karachi until her brother and other family members moved her to Islamabad in March 2021, where, despite medical care, her condition worsened.

As a highly prolific painter, Qudsia Nisar was widely recognised by art critics as being the pioneer of using water colour in Pakistan to express abstract visions of modern art without using conventional figures and forms.

Exploring this unusual dimension with courage and creativity, she produced hundreds of works of art in about four and a half decades. Qudsia Nisar was also deeply committed to the education and training of youth in diverse artistic disciplines, including water colour, oil painting, sculpture and crafts.

For eight years, she served as principal of the Central Institute of Arts & Crafts at the Arts Council of Pakistan in Karachi. This institute fostered dozens of new artists as the only non-profit, public service art education centre of the province.

Earlier, from 1977 to about 1992, she served as the head of the Department of Fine Arts and as lecturer in the Lahore-based Punjab University’s Department of Fine Arts.

Between 2006 and 2010 she worked as chairperson of the Department of Fine Arts and lecturer at the Islamia University of Bahawalpur. She also imparted instructions and guidance to students at the Mehran University of Engineering & Technology at Jamshoro, which recognised her services with a Lifetime Achievement Award in 2016.

Several hundred young girls and boys across the country gave her enormous respect for her dedicated teaching.

Qudsia Nisar’s originality and her ability to combine bright colours with subtle, pastel shades in innovative new forms and shapes received appreciation from renowned critics and fellow painters in Pakistan and overseas countries where her work was frequently exhibited. Her paintings and her services to education have been highly praised in several books by critics, and depicted in many documentary films. She received a large number of national and international awards. Her admirers and art patrons plan to organise a virtual tribute in the second half of May 2021 to honour her memory.