This pioneering work traces the emergence of the modern and
contemporary art of Muslim South Asia in relation to transnational
modernism and in light of the region's intellectual, cultural, and
political developments.
Art historian Iftikhar Dadi here explores the art and writings of
major artists, men and women, ranging from the late colonial period
to the era of independence and beyond. He looks at the stunningly
diverse artistic production of key artists associated with
Pakistan, including Abdur Rahman Chughtai, Zainul Abedin, Shakir
Ali, Zubeida Agha, Sadequain, Rasheed Araeen, and Naiza Khan. Dadi
shows how, beginning in the 1920s, these artists addressed the
challenges of modernity by translating historical and contemporary
intellectual conceptions into their work, reworking traditional
approaches to the classical Islamic arts, and engaging the
modernist approach towards subjective individuality in artistic
expression. In the process, they dramatically reconfigured the
visual arts of the region. By the 1930s, these artists had embarked
on a sustained engagement with international modernism in a context
of dizzying social and political change that included
decolonization, the rise of mass media, and developments following
the national independence of India and Pakistan in 1947.
Bringing new insights to such concepts as nationalism, modernism,
cosmopolitanism, and tradition, Dadi underscores the powerful
impact of transnationalism during this period and highlights the
artists' growing embrace of modernist and contemporary artistic
practice in order to address the challenges of the present era.