A deeply religious, straightforward, disciplined family man, Saeed Akhtar is an antithesis to the once stereotype bohemian image of artists, especially from his generation. And to make it more complicated, he has been colour-blind till two years ago when he had a corrective surgery. He has spent a life of complete devotion to his profession and continues to produce powerful and inspiring work. I have been visiting his various studios in Lahore since long and have observed him always busy with his work. Even if there was no commission, he would be doing portraits of friends, students and those showing persistence to have a portrait made by him. Or if he was not busy with portraits, then he would be doing sketches of human figures, animals or sculptures etc. Arguably his drawing is unmatched. An octogenarian, he still arrives in his studio in the morning, after dropping his grandchildren off at school, and mostly spends the whole day working there.
Saeed Akhtar’s first studio was in Main Market, Lahore. He later moved it to a market in Garden Town and remained there till 1985. He finally settled in a purpose-built studio and gallery, designed in 2011 by his elder son, the accomplished architect and interior designer Umar Saeed. His other three children have followed his creative footsteps and become painters. His younger son Usman Saeed is a distinguished visual artist. A ‘Saeed Akhtar Clan’ exhibition showcasing the family’s creativity was held in 2016. The creative gene probably flows in the family because Saeed Akhtar’s grandfather Yusuf Dahlvi was a renowned calligrapher of the Subcontinent.
With full immersion in his work, Saeed Akhtar’s wife Sadia was the force behind the family. It was because of her strength that all members of Saeed clan went about their professions. It was inevitable for us to visit the family on every Chaand Raat (the night before the Eid) and if we got late there would be a call from her, enquiring about our whereabouts and the need to arrive early because home-cooked delicacies awaited us. Tragically, Auntie was diagnosed with cancer in 2000 and did not live long to enjoy seeing all her children fully established.
Saeed Akhtar's "Ghora" is a legend like the artist - his control over the anatomy and movement of the
animal is absolute
At NCA, Saeed Akhtar, student of Shakir Ali, taught sculpture and drawing. He was a strict disciplinarian and expected the same level of devotion from his students. At times he would break the sculpture assignments nearing completion by students – requiring them to start again. Of course this did not go down well with students. But ultimately most students turned into fond friends and disciples of Saeed Akhtar, since the strictness was rooted in genuine desire for his pupils to improve their work and realise their true potential as artists. Pakistan’s famous ceramist Talat Dabir was one of his students and later a fellow faculty member. She, too, was a strict teacher. I recall when Saeed Akhtar visited the first-year Sculpture studio in his wrath, she would suddenly become soft and started defending our efforts and the hard work put in by students.
At the request of some friends and students in the late 1980s Saeed Akhtar started coaching aspiring NCA students in the basics of drawing in his Garden Town studio. Every year, in the summer holidays before the NCA admission, his studio in Garden Town, Lahore, was thronged by young girls and boys for drawing classes. Over a period of time he had to acquire the whole floor because of the high number of students and the success of his coached students. The studio was open for all. I, too, attended it and met friends and highly creative people there. Some of them have now carved themselves a reputation in arts and design, including architects Raza Ali Dada, Aamer Waheed and Naseer Ahmad, film director Ahsan Rahim, Qudsia Rahim (who is working on the Lahore Biennale), Iram Bilal and actor Jawad Bashir amongst others.
Saeed Akhtar’s paintings have a distinctive boldness – reflected in the colours and powerful strokes. He is also known for his equally masterful drawings. Anyone seeing his work will not fail to feel the power and command of Saeed Akhtar over his canvas, regardless of the scale. It is akin to the experience of looking at some of the works of the great European masters, be it Michelangelo or Rembrandt.
Saeed Akhtar’s source of fame are his portraits. These include portraits of the leaders of our independence movement and various heads of State and of governments. He did a Pioneers of Freedom series, doing the portraits of 32 leaders of the Independence movement. These portraits were issued as commemorative stamps. The portraits of the founding father of the nation, Mohammad Ali Jinnah, are a specialty of Saeed Akhtar. His paintings adorn many official buildings – Governors’ Houses, the Presidency, the Prime Minister’s residence and the National Assembly. He also did a portrait of the modern-day saint, the late Abdul Sattar Edhi, for a stamp.
Other topics of interest to Saeed Akhtar include writers, poets, individuals, students and beautiful women. A visit to his studio would mean meeting someone familiar, famous or beautiful because everyone who was anyone wanted to have a portrait done from Pakistan’s premier portrait painter. For a very long time he did live painting – the person would have to sit in front of the artist. It would take months for a portrait to be finished and to wait for one’s turn. I accompanied my father and mother at different times when their portraits were being done by Saeed Akhtar.
There is a glamour and sense of elitism in his portraits and they give a glorified and larger than life image of individuals. He used to leave the remaining canvas white, monochromatic or with paint dripping in the background. Here his colour blindness played a role. He could not distinguish between certain colours and his eyes are more sensitive to tones than colours. The use of tones distinguishes him from his other contemporaries. At another stage of his practice he started adding floral and calligraphic patterns around the portraits.
The horse is an animal commonly painted by artists in different societies. It symbolises elitism, force, power and control, and it has important religious connotations. Saeed Akhtar’s “Ghora” is a legend like the artist – his control over the anatomy and the movement of the animal is absolute. He has done a series of different painting including his spiritual homage to Buraq, Holy Prophet’s (PBUH) horse that took him on the journey of Meraj.
The movement and galloping force of Saeed Akhtar’s horse is phenomenal. He used to paint it in monotone – white, black or blue. By 2009 he started imagining the colors in God’s nature and his painted horse with wings emerged in an amazing sparkling hue.
Another animal that Saeed Akhtar has painted is the bull. Again the anatomy of the animal and the majestic force depicted by the artist is evident from his works. One of them is a painting that he did for the title of Mustansar Hussain Tarar’s book Undlaas Main Ajnaabi – the travelogue about Spain and its rich Muslim heritage. The painting has a mighty beast injured from a bullfight, standing against a Moorish building with calligraphy.
Saeed Akhtar’s half-a-century-long practice includes portraits, sculpture, calligraphy and landscape painting. His landscape is a modernist, wavy and longish composition. They have slanted layers of different colours – blue, purple and green interspersed with tall thin trees.
Another interesting series, and one of my favourites, is that of his own self-portraits, done at various points in life. From the early 1970s, he did so with a young, tough-looking artist to add his own projection as an old Baloch with the same features.
Saeed Akhtar has been fortunate that his work is widely acclaimed and has been acknowledged and awarded the Pride of Performance award in 1994 and Sitara-i-Imtiaz in 2012. But Saeed Akhtar’s “Ghora” has higher mountains to climb and many more colourful landscapes to gallop through. It is bound to tread on paths that go beyond the lifetime of an artist.
The writer can be reached at smt2104@caa.columbia.edu