a blend of tradition and modern expressionism
Third in a series of monographs on art, this book, though the text accompanying the reproductions is shoddily written, performs the commendable function of affording us a glimpse of the full range of the ouevre of a sensitive and dedicated artist working in less than congenial circumstances. Her father was court jeweller (i.e. a designer and master craftsman) and adviser to the Maharaja of Jamnagar, whom he would accompany on royal trips to London. There he met Florence Cox, a young Englishwoman. The two fell in love; she converted to Islam and became his second wife. Laila Shahzada was the eldest of their six children.
She went to a co-ed boarding school near Pune, where she put in an extra year to be trained in textile design, but her father wouldn’t allow her education to continue beyond Senior Cambridge, and wanted to marry her off. When she fell in love and eloped he persuaded her to return home by promising to recognize the marriage through a social reception; then locked her up.
She managed to escape to her husband, with whom she had two children before an acrimonious divorce. She lost the custody battle for her elder child, a three-year-old daughter. It would be another dozen or so years before mother and daughter were reunited. Devastated psychologically, she turned to art for solace.
Without an art school background (besides art classes at boarding school she took some drawing classes at the London Drawing Society), Laila began modestly, publishing drawings and illustrations in a monthly magazine. She married again and when her husband resigned his air force commission to work for an ad agency and then to set one up, she harnessed her creativity to the venture. Her development as a serious artist was aided by interaction with established artists. Among western artists she was particularly taken with Georgia O’Keefe, with whom her kinship is obvious, and with other moderns like Frida Kahlo and Henry Moore, but she was also alive to the creative energy of popular art, particularly truck art. With admirable insight she declared that ‘rustic,’ illiterate and unschooled artists could ‘distort naturally whereas we learn to distort.’ She organized a workshop to encourage truck artists to transfer their work to canvas and the results of the experiment were exhibited to acclaim.
After her well-received first solo exhibition in Karachi in 1959 Laila exhibited regularly, both at home and abroad. A critical note on a 1963 show in What’s on in London perceptively pointed out the unsynthesized presence in her of sophistication and naivety: ‘She paints tree trunks as if they were swirling, solid folds of Maya. Sometimes they are very successful and sometimes they have a bazaar crudity. A portrait of an Indian girl dares an unexpected flashing smile. There is also a Buddha who retreats in meditation.’
The first of her several shows in the USA, in New York in 1975, was accompanied by the presentation by the Mayor of the key to the city, together with an embarrassingly patronizing Certificate of Appreciation that declared the event to be ‘fitting in International Women’s Year, since in Pakistan women are beginning to gain the freedoms of women in our country.’
Laila was long established as one of her country’s leading artists, when death struck in a terrible accident. A gas pipe in her house had leaked and she lit a cigarette.
Though not an innovator, Laila responded with admirable energy to diverse experiences. Mohenjedaro and the region’s Buddhist heritage inspired a number of works. A fascinating piece of drift-wood inspired a whole series, punningly titled ‘Driftmood.’ The spectacular mountainous landscape of northern Pakistan inspired another series. No wonder Laila’s reputation in her country remains high.
Kaiser Haq is member of the Jamini editorial board
Third in a series of monographs on art, this book, though the text accompanying the reproductions is shoddily written, performs the commendable function of affording us a glimpse of the full range of the ouevre of a sensitive and dedicated artist working in less than congenial circumstances. Her father was court jeweller (i.e. a designer…