Ahmed Parvez (1926-1979)

A founding member of the Modernist group, the Lahore Art Circle, Ahmed Parvez, is widely known as the most "shock provoking" of 20th century Pakistan. He lived in London from 1955 to 1965 and became one of the earliest Pakistani painters to receive international acclaim. The intensity and explosiveness of his works and his rejection of "doctrinaire thinking" and spontaniety of style reflect his unstable and impetuous personality (some have suggested that he was bi-polar or schizophrenic). He emerged as one of the most prolific painters of his time with over 50 shows in Pakistan, London, New York. (M. Sirhandi, Contemporary Painting in Pakistan, Lahore, 1992, p.74). The present work may have come from his last exhibition in 1979 at the Indus Gallery in Karachi.