Ali Imam
The Ghee Maker, 1975
Oil on canvas
76 x 106 cm
29 7/8 x 41 3/4 in
29 7/8 x 41 3/4 in
Signed and dated 'S A Imam 75' lower right
Further images
'The Ghee Maker' is typical of Imam’s work from the early 1970s, when his subjects were drawn from the village women of the Punjab. In the late 1960s Imam started...
'The Ghee Maker' is typical of Imam’s work from the early 1970s, when his subjects were drawn from the village women of the Punjab. In the late 1960s Imam started painting his feted ‘white on white’ paintings. The works produced in the immediate aftermath of this maintain the light hues and plastic nature of these earlier works, and Akbar Naqvi comments; ‘the thick, loamy texture of these paintings influenced Jamil Naqsh in his early works.’ In this painting the figure has a strongly sculptural feel, a sense of dynamism and tension realised in the taught string.
This was painted shortly after the establishment of Indus Gallery in Karachi in 1971. Imam started the gallery to support Pakistani artists; “I decided to come back to Pakistan and be helpful to those who are more gifted and more talented than me, and to create a climate of work where I could be a sort of guidance and help…”
Yashodhara Dalmia comments of Imam's work; "As it happened, Ali's best period came after his return to Pakistan.... Ali had made figuration his forte and some of his best works were of a down-to-earth reality of people at work.
References:
Akbar Naqvi, Image and Identity Fifty Years of Painting and Sculpture in Pakistan, Oxford University Press, 1998, pp. 288-289
S. Ali Imam quoted in M. Husain, Ali Imam: Man of the Arts, Foundation for Museum of Modern Art, Karachi, 2003, p. 59
Y. Dalmia, Sayed Haider Raza, Harper Collins, New Delhi, 2021, p. 48
This was painted shortly after the establishment of Indus Gallery in Karachi in 1971. Imam started the gallery to support Pakistani artists; “I decided to come back to Pakistan and be helpful to those who are more gifted and more talented than me, and to create a climate of work where I could be a sort of guidance and help…”
Yashodhara Dalmia comments of Imam's work; "As it happened, Ali's best period came after his return to Pakistan.... Ali had made figuration his forte and some of his best works were of a down-to-earth reality of people at work.
References:
Akbar Naqvi, Image and Identity Fifty Years of Painting and Sculpture in Pakistan, Oxford University Press, 1998, pp. 288-289
S. Ali Imam quoted in M. Husain, Ali Imam: Man of the Arts, Foundation for Museum of Modern Art, Karachi, 2003, p. 59
Y. Dalmia, Sayed Haider Raza, Harper Collins, New Delhi, 2021, p. 48
Provenance
Indus Gallery, Karachi;
Thomas and Barbara Dimmock, UK, acquired in Pakistan in the mid-1970s;
Thence by descent
Thomas Dimmock worked as an engineer in Pakistan in the 1970s/early 1980s. He and his wife acquired Woman with Pigeon and The Ghee Maker from Ali Imam’s Indus Gallery in the late 1970s, along with a handful of other works by Pakistani contemporary painters. They left Pakistan in the early 1980s, relocating to Holland, before settling in the UK.
Exhibitions
South Asian Modern Art 2022, Grosvenor Gallery, London (illustrated in the exhibition catalogue)Join Our Mailing List
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