CALLIGRAPHY

Sadequain was able to take the Calligraphy to unprecedented heights, his rebellious soul may be credited for it, rather than the long standing family tradition of calligraphy.

Like Ibn-e-Muqla�s achievement of bringing writing to the aesthetic perfection, Sadequain took the calligraphy to the new frontiers of boldness, vibrating with life that is more enthralling than enchanting. His mixing of classical Khats (scripts) with his abstract styled writing infused a new life in calligraphic arts in the subcontinent.

His experimentations in this field practically opened up new avenues, sensitizing the art world to recognize calligraphy as an art form. Bursting out with rendering of forty individual panels, of separate refrains of mellifluous and beautiful verse of Surah Rahman in 1969, the untiring artist flooded the art world with innumerable renderings, combining writing with images, decorating the words with bold strokes and exquisite colors, mainly in shades of blue and ochre. World of calligraphic arts have acquired different meaning since Sadequain. Some of his interesting pieces are available in Lahore Museum.

While calligraphy of Quranic verses was given a new vitality and life by Sadequain, his usual script in both English and Urdu was no less beautiful and arresting. His collections of Rubaiyyat were all scripted and written in his own hand with amazing sketches around them. His ordinary script was a work of art itself. The State Bank of Pakistan publications were adorned and beautified by Sadequain, simply writing the name or heading in his unique artistic script. The SBP Museum Sadequain's Art Gallery has some examples on display.

COLLAGES

A distinctive feature of Sadequain�s artwork in the State Bank of Pakistan is the collection of collages, worked in wood and metal. He did it exclusively for the Bank. This kind of work by him is nowhere else to be seen. On the background of wooden frames, Sadequain worked miracles twisting iron, copper and steel into artist�s fertile imagination of figures of hope, aspiration and conquest. There are four of them done in mixed media of wood, copper, iron and steel and one done only in copper on wood.

There is one more special collage embedded in the marble wall of the entrance lobby of the State Bank Karachi office. Sadequain called it �a painting without canvas� and named it �Chariot of Time�. The Chariot of Time is moving at a great speed on the wheels of money supported by an industrious group of people. This is also done in wood, copper, iron and steel and is affixed to the wall. It can be seen if one enters through the public entrance.

PUBLICATION DESIGN

We are including publications, in Sadequain�s artistic contribution to the State Bank of Pakistan; as a number of publications of the decade of 60s to 70s have been adorned and glamorized by Sadequain�s seemingly effortless efforts. The publications for the grand function of the inauguration of the then new building of the State Bank of Pakistan in Karachi in 1961 were all designed and illustrated by Sadequain. The brochure for the building called the golden brochure because of its gold color was totally designed and their layout, sketches and the magnificent cover in which the whole building has been portrayed or scripted by writing Bank Daulat-e-Pakistan in Urdu over and over again, all done by Sadequain.

Back

SADEQUAIN'S WORK AT SBP