Exhibition: Old Lahore through the eyes of Iqbal Hussain

The celebrated artist exhibits 55 of his works at Tanzara Art Gallery.

ISLAMABAD: Six women sit huddled on a charpoy next to a wall. Their heads are covered in dark shawls. Their hands and feet are tied with a single length of rope that goes around in a circle, uniting them in their captivity. This is the scene of a painting by Iqbal Hussain, the renowned Lahore-based artist whose work is currently on display Tanzara Art Gallery.

The faces of two of the women are not visible but the rest look up with practically indecipherable expressions. The women are not scared, or guilt-stricken, just tired and they gaze matter-of-factly at the viewer.

Hussain was born and raised in Lahore’s Shahi Mohalla --- a neighbourhood of courtesans during the Mughal era that turned into a red-light district, in recent times, popularly known as Heera Mandi. His paintings reflect a sensitivity to the reality of the lives of women in Shahi Mohalla. His work is important because it brings to light the harshness and despair of women stigmatised by society.

In a written statement, Hussain said he paints the reality he sees around him. “I have no intellectual pretensions. These are my people and I paint them as I know them from close quarters,” he said. “My paintings portray the hardcore reality of life, reflecting the day to day pain and pleasure of common people.” Unlike the captive women in the life-size oil painting, other paintings show women in various natural poses.



Full-bodied women stare desolately from many of the picture frames, as if they are looking directly into a camera.  In a realistic depiction of a house in Heera Mandi, women and children are seen in a small room with garish blue walls. One of the women is cradling a young child and a man’s back barely makes the frame.

Some paintings show women reclining against blank backgrounds, giving the impression they are hovering in a vast, sorrowful emptiness. An emptiness that does not reduce them, but one to which they might as well be indifferent. All the subjects in Hussain’s paintings are women, most often with blurred faces, hands and feet. Perhaps it is the artist’s attempt to criticise society for discriminating against the prostitutes by robbing them of their individual identities.



Noshi Qadir, the gallery’s curator, said, “Hussain’s work has a distinct flair which sets him apart from the work of his contemporaries,” she said. “He immortalises his subject in the impressionistic style that belong to Lahore’s old walled city of courtesans, musicians and the River Ravi landscapes.”The exhibition, which displays 55 paintings, will continue until April 10.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 1^st, 2013.