Written by: Haroon Shuaib
Posted on: March 25, 2022 | 
| 中文
(R to L) Ahmed Saeed Nagi, Sadequain, Wahab Jaffer and Ali Imam
Born in Narsinghpur, Madhya Pradesh in 1924, Syed Ali Imam’s father, Syed Mohammad Razi, was a forest officer. The third son of his parents and interested in art from a young age, Ali Imam started training as an artist by taking evening classes at Nagpur School of Art. His parents separated after his father took another wife, and the young Ali grew closer to his mother. In his early teens, Ali Imam followed his brother Raza to Bombay to study at Sir Jamsedjee Jeejeebhoy School of Arts, against the wishes of his father, who wanted him to pursue sciences. A headstrong but academically bright Ali Imam moved to Delhi in 1946 to complete his intermediate.
After 1947, Ali Imam moved to Lahore and then Rawalpindi, eventually graduating from Gordon College, Rawalpindi in 1949, while also working as a night shift telephone operator. Like all thinking, feeling young men, Ali Imam was drawn to left wing politics and joined the Communist Party of Pakistan. He resigned from the party in 1952, though by then he had been to jail thrice due to his politics. All this time, the painting process did not stop, but the time that he could dedicate to it kept varying. His paintings were about common working class people and rural life. He kept saving whatever he could from subsequent teaching stints, first in Rawalpindi, then in 1952 as head of the art department at Lawrence College, Ghora Gali, Murree. He later joined Sadiq Public School, Bahawalpur. One can see landscapes depicting mountains of Murree and the old city of Bahawalpur in his paintings from that period of his life.
Ali Imam in his art class at Lawrence College, Murree (1952)
A natural at attracting like-minded people, with an amiable personality, Ali Imam was founder member of Lahore Art Circle. Artists who joined him were: Moyenne Najmi, A. J. Shemza, Hanif Ramay, Kutab Shiekh, Mariam Shah, Razia Feroze, Ahmed Parvez, and Sheikh Safdar. Regular exhibitions were held in Lahore, Murree, and Karachi. The circle soon started to revolve around the magnetic Shakir Ali, who moved to Lahore from Karachi around the same time. Under his tutelage, the young artists of Pakistan formulated a new idiom of modern art. Shakir Ali advised Ali Imam to study Cezanne, because he felt that Ali Imam was always painting the obvious through landscapes and cityscapes.
(L to R) Shakir Ali, Ali Imam and Zubeida Agha at the inauguration of Asian Child Art Exhibition, held at Aitchison College, Lahore in 1955
Soon Ali Imam was on his way to England, where he initially shared boarding with his friend, the bohemian master artist, Ahmed Pervez. With whatever he had saved as a teacher, he took up evening art classes and made ends meet by working as a lift operator during the day. He studied art at St Martin’s School of Art from 1959 to 1960, and at Hammersmith College of Art from 1962 to '63. Ali Imam also joined various libraries, learned to appreciate ballet, opera, literature, theatre, and Western classical music. He also visited art galleries in Paris, Amsterdam, Rome and Venice.
It was in London that Ali Imam had a solo exhibition in 1958 at the Imperial Institute Gallery, a first solo exhibition of a Pakistani artist in Britain, and displayed his 56 paintings executed in oils and gouache. Ali Imam joined forces with Ahmed Parvez, A. J. Shemza, Murtaza Bashir, and Safiuddin Ahmed and put up a group show at Woodstock Gallery in 1959.
Poster of Ali Imam's exhibition in London in 1958
From 1961 to 1966, Ali Imam took part in dozens of group shows while working full time in the advertising section of the Greater London Council. He also got married in London, but that marriage didn’t last. His quest for discovering his own artistic expression continued. Looking back at that time, Ali Imam recalled, “I consider my life, with Paris and London, libraries and books, archaeology and history at my feet, and wonder what happened to me? …. My friends and acquaintances think that I am a very knowledgeable person and that I should be creating works of art of a higher discipline, but somehow or the other, the muses of creativity never touched me. I got lost in the muses of the creativity of others, and in the process of collecting other people’s knowledge.” Little did he know that his cubist figurative style will inspire many in years to come.
Murree Hills by Ali Imam (1953)
On his return in 1966, Ali Imam made Karachi his base. Those were still early days and the art scene of Karachi was still in its infancy. After his return, Ali Imam had his first solo exhibition in 1968 at the Lahore Arts Council, and it was apparent that a very different artist had appeared in place of the young man who had set off for London in 1956. In Karachi, Ali Imam spent most of his time at the Central Institute of Arts and Crafts – CIAC, housed within the Arts Council Building, where he started teaching and later rose to be the principal. During this time, he also met his wife, Shehnaz, who remained a supportive presence throughout his life. Despite his blunt and candid opinions based on modernist ideals, he was able to revise the outmoded curriculum with thought-provoking lectures, slideshows and discussions on art appreciation, art philosophy, and history.
Although he served as the principal of CIAC for a brief tenure only, from 1967 to 1971, his presence made the number of students swell from a few to 150. Most of his students excelled as artists, designers, art directors, critics and writers such as Nahid Raza, Noorjehan Bilgrami, Tabinda Chinoy, Nilofer Farrukh and Seema Tahir Khan. Ali Imam received the President of Pakistan’s Pride of Performance Award in 1968.
Ali Imam with Ustad Allah Bukhsh in 1973
It was ironically as founder of Indus Gallery that Ali Imam finally created a niche for himself. The Gallery became a center of a burgeoning art movement. Housed in the front portion of his residence, near the Nursery Area of Karachi, since the Gallery was in close proximity to his living quarters, it was easy to keep it open on most days. People recall seeing him at the Gallery, serving his children lunch or helping them with homework in between attending to visitors. Ali Imam would welcome them with a smile, while smoking a pipe, always willing to indulge in a discussion about art. He was happy to sell art, never as a commodity but as recognition of creativity. Salima Hashmi recalls, “When I came back from England, I realized that through the Indus Gallery, Ali Imam had taught people to appreciate art, enjoy art and, more importantly, buy art works.”
'White on White' by Ali Imam
These were the 1970s, an age of idealism and intellectual pursuit; when poets and writers were sought out, even if they were impoverished. Painters were slowly coming into their own, but the art market had not developed. Ali Imam cultivated young industrialists, corporate fraternity, and moneyed classes to buy art. He fostered art critics and writers so they could lend value and prestige to the work being produced. He regularly held Sunday afternoon meetings at the Gallery, gave a chance for emerging artists to mingle with the country’s literati, potential buyers and patrons. Poets like Faiz Ahmed Faiz, scientist Salimuzzaman Siddiqui, and artists Ahmed Parvez, Sadequain, Tassadaq Sohail, M.F. Hussain, and Francis Newton Souza were just a few of the many who regularly dropped in at the Gallery. Preoccupied by the Gallery, Ali Imam was painting less and less.
Ali Imam had finally found his creative fulfillment as a curator, dealer, mentor for artists, buyers, collectors and connoisseurs. Alongside exhibiting and creating a market for renowned artists like Jamil Naqsh, Sadequain, Chughtai, Allah Buksh, Haji Sharif, Ajmal Hussain, Mansur Rahi, Laila Shahzada, he was also providing a platform for new entrants like Lubna Agha, Mehr Afroze, Wahab Jaffer, and Mashkoor Raza. Ali Imam had set the standards for the future art galleries in Pakistan, and gained the reputation for being an arbitrator of authenticity and yardstick of excellence. In 1995, the Gallery shifted to another location in Bath Island. In the latter half of ‘90’s he fell ill, and was forced to be confined mostly to his room, and he started painting again.
Ali Imam's cubic figurative style
After a life well spent, Ali Imam had a heart attack at the age of 78, and passed away on May 23, 2002. On his demise, his niece and renowned artist Nahid Raza said, “With him went an entire century. He had a complete understanding of the grammar of painting. He also knew how to initiate a person into the fascinating world of art.”
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