Lot 74: BASHIR MIRZA

BASHIR MIRZA 1941-2000 UNTITLED PROPERTY FROM A PRIVATE PAKISTANI COLLECTION Signed and dated 'Bashir Mirza 74' lower right Oil on canvas 86.5 by 324 cm. (34 by 127½ in.)

Indus Gallery 1975

Gifted by the artist to Saif-ur-Rehman Girami in 1975

Purchased by the current owner from the above in 1988

Bashir Mirza visited Europe between 1969 and 1970, where he was exposed to and inspired by Western art and techniques. When he returned to Pakistan the artist abandonned the abstract paintings he had painted in the mid 1960s moving towards a more figurative form of art. The current work was painted around the time the artist was producing the Lonely Girls and Flower Flower series; where he used figurative compositions with flat plains of colour, Mirza also produced a third series 'which emulated miniature painting on an enlarged scale' (Marcella Nesom Sirhandi Contemporary Painting in Pakistan, 1992, p.72). When the artist was training at the National College of Arts, he also apprentinced for a short time as a sign board painter to make some money. It was whilst here that he became accomplished in painting on a large scale with figurative compositions and bold areas of colour. 'Bashir's importance as a painter lies in the structural strength and expressive quality of his ink drawings, as well as his success in reviving figurative art in a colourful, flat format.' (ibid. p.73) as displayed in the current lot.