At ThinkFest, a conversation unfolded that was less a formal panel and more an intimate journey through Pakistan’s modern art history. Visual artist Sabah Husain and American art historian Marcella Nesom Sirhandi came together to trace the lives, works, and legacies of women artists who not only defined artistic movements but also reshaped institutions, pedagogy, and cultural thought across borders.
Rather than offering a comprehensive survey, the speakers curated a selective, chronological narrative of sixteen artists, women whose practices introduced new media, challenged conventions, founded galleries, taught generations, and connected Pakistan’s art scene to global currents.
The journey began before Partition, with Amrita Sher-Gil, a towering figure of South Asian modernism. Born to a Hungarian mother and Punjabi Sikh father, Sher-Gil trained in Paris and absorbed European modernist influences, particularly Cézanne and Matisse. Yet her true transformation occurred after her return to India in 1935, when her work drew deeply from South Asian traditions such as Basohli miniatures. Her village scenes and portraits broke radically from colonial academic styles, creating a hybrid visual language that continues to influence artists across Pakistan and India. Her untimely death in Lahore at just twenty-nine only deepened her mythic stature.
Post-Partition Pakistan saw the emergence of Zubeida Agha, widely regarded as the pioneer of modern art in the country. Educated in Europe, Agha introduced abstraction and bold colour to Pakistan’s visual vocabulary. Beyond her canvases, her contribution was institutional: she opened one of Pakistan’s earliest art galleries, creating a platform for emerging artists and cementing abstraction as a legitimate artistic language.
If Zubeida Agha brought abstraction, Anna Molka Ahmed brought resilience. Of Polish-Russian heritage and trained in London, she arrived in Lahore in 1940 and later undertook the formidable task of rebuilding the art department at Punjab University in the aftermath of Partition. Amid physical destruction and social chaos, she expanded art education, introduced male students to the programme, and popularised techniques such as the palette knife. Her portraits and depictions of Punjab University remain visual testaments to her belief in art as both discipline and defiance.
Another towering presence was Salima Hashmi, artist, educator, curator, writer, and cultural organiser. As principal of the National College of Arts and founder of key galleries, Hashmi’s influence extended far beyond her own practice. Her politically charged works reflected the turbulence of Pakistan’s history, while her commitment to teaching and institution-building helped sustain artistic life during periods of censorship and authoritarian rule.
The panel also explored the emotional geographies of displacement through artists such as Laila Shehzada, whose abstract works shifted dramatically after she moved to California. Her later paintings, inspired by Islamic architecture and Middle Eastern design, conveyed a deep sense of estrangement and longing, demonstrating how migration reshapes artistic language.
Political resistance emerged vividly in the work of Lala Rukh, a minimalist artist and founding member of the Women’s Action Forum. While her paintings were serene and meditative, her posters and activism confronted the harsh realities of the Zia-ul-Haq era. Lala Rukh’s legacy also lives on through the MA Honours programme she established at NCA, which foregrounded South Asian art history, critical theory, and interdisciplinary thinking.
Artists such as Nahid Raza continued this dialogue between form and politics. Drawing inspiration from sites like the Chaukhandi tombs and Egyptian art, her work consistently foregrounded women’s experiences. Her later series, marked by sparse settings and symbolic figures, offered a quiet yet powerful feminist critique.
The conversation moved fluidly into contemporary practices, installation, printmaking, miniature painting, and multimedia work. Durriya Kazi’s immersive installations brought truck art and folk aesthetics into elite art spaces, challenging hierarchies of “high” and “low” culture. Ruby Chishti’s soft sculptures, made from discarded textiles, transformed grief and caregiving into tactile metaphors for memory and loss.
A significant section was devoted to artists working with miniature traditions in radically new ways. Nusra Latif Qureshi, Saira Sheikh, and Shahzia Sikander exemplified how rigorous training in Mughal miniature painting could be reimagined through contemporary themes, humour, animation, and global politics. Sikander, now internationally celebrated, stands as a testament to how Pakistani artistic traditions have entered the global canon without losing their historical depth.
Throughout the discussion, one theme remained constant: movement. Ideas, techniques, and identities crossed borders repeatedly—between Lahore, Karachi, Paris, Tokyo, New York, and beyond. As Sirhandi noted, many of these artists challenge the very notion of fixed national boundaries. Their work suggests that Pakistani modernity is not confined to geography but shaped by dialogue, displacement, and exchange.
In tracing these lives and practices, the panel offered more than art history. It presented a story of women who built institutions where none existed, resisted repression through form and pedagogy, and ensured that Pakistan’s artistic narrative remained dynamic, plural, and globally engaged.