Jamil Naqsh – A Contemporary Classic

Edward Lucie Smith

Today Jamil Naqsh is one of the best-known artists of modern Pakistan – one who chooses to live in London as a recluse, paying occasional visits to relatives in Dubai. His personal history is in some ways typical of the upheavals that, in the course of the 20th century, have formed and reformed the culture of the Indian subcontinent. His art is resonant of a much longer period than this, and has a wider cultural reach. He is at the same time the heir to the old Mughal regime in India, and his work also offers a significant narrative about the way in which the artists of the whole subcontinent, not merely those who are now identified with Pakistan, have tried to integrate what they do with the ongoing narrative of Modernism now followed by Post Modernism.