Lot 566: ZAHOOR UL AKHLAQ (1941-1999)

ZAHOOR UL AKHLAQ (1941-1999)
Autumn III
acrylic on canvas
48 x 36 in. (129.1 x 91.4 cm.)
Painted in 1988

New Haven, Yale University School of Art and Architecture, 1989
Hull, Canada, Galerie Montcalm, 1989

Collection of Sheherezade Alam and Nurjahan Akhlaq

PROPERTY FROM A PRIVATE COLLECTION

The present work, along with lot 563, was painted while Akhlaq was undertaking a research residency at Yale University. It is part of a series of works in bold colors, using a palette of green and orange monochrome inspired by the spectacular shades of changing leaves during the autumnal season in New Haven, Connecticut. The work is referential of American painters such as Josef Albers, while also appropriating the frame structure of miniatures painting, considered by many to be Akhlaq's signature. This work emphasizes a dialogue engaging with modernist abstraction and Islamic formalism found within miniatures.