s.m.MANSOOR

RESUME                                                             

Name of the Artist:  S.M.Mansoor (Modern Miniature Artist)

Father’s Name: S.M.Zahoor (Calligraphist Painter)

Grand Father:   Ustad Haji Muhammad Sharif (National Painter of Pakistan)

Date of Birth:  April 15, 1958

Place of Birth:  Lahore - Pakistan

Art education:  Diploma in Communication art from National College of Arts, Lahore - Pakistan

Present Status:       Freelance Painter and Art educationist

Postal Address:       450-H, Block Gulshan-e-Ravi, Lahore 54500-Pakistan

Phone:     +92 – 42 – 7414490

Cell:        +92 – 0333 – 4291615

E-mail:    info@mansoorminiatures.com / mannsor@brain.net.pk

Website:  http://www.mansoorminiatures.com

 

VISITING LECTURER:

*     Many national and international art schools & universities.

*     Conducted many art workshops and delivered lectures on modern Miniature Art in Pakistan.

 

EXHIBITIONS: One-Man Show

1.    1983 National College of Arts, Lahore - Pakistan

2.    1994 Rest House, Chakwal - Pakistan

3.    1996 National Art Gallery, Islamabad - Pakistan

4.    1997 R.D.A.Complex, Rawalpindi - Pakistan

5.    1998 Fort Manro, D.G. Khan - Pakistan

6.    2001 Al Hamra Art Gallery, Lahore - Pakistan

7.    2002 Hamile Art Gallery, Lahore - Pakistan

8.    2002 Haveli Dehan Singh, Lahore - Pakistan

9.    2003 Punjab Arts Council, Faisalabad - Pakistan

10.   2004 Punjab Arts Council, Gujranwala - Pakistan

11.   2004 Galaxy Hotel, Sialkot - Pakistan

12.   2005 Guru Nanak Dev University, Amritsar - India

13.   2005 Punjabi University, Patialla - India

14.   2005 Punjab University, Chandigarh - India

15.   2005 Al-Hamra Art Gallery, Lahore - Pakistan

16.   2006 Kunj Art Gallery, Karachi – Pakistan

 

GROUP SHOWS:

1.    Participated in Punjab artist association’s exhibition many times

2.    Attended many national & provincial exhibitions

3.    Participated group show for USA, UK, Singapore & Norway, organized by National Council of Arts

4.    Fifth Asian Art Biennial, Dhaka,1991

5.    Attended international graphic design exhibition in Tehran, 1991

6.    Travelling exhibition through SAARC (group of southeast countries) 1997

7.    8th National exhibition 2003

8.    29th Annual exhibition 2003 Hong Kong visual art society

9.    6th Sharjah Biennial 2004

 

COLLECTION:

Parliament House, Islamabad - Pakistan

Pakistan Senate, Islamabad - Pakistan

President’s House, D. G. Khan - Pakistan

Commissioner’s House, D. G. Khan - Pakistan

Punjab House, Islamabad - Pakistan

Governor’s House, Peshawar - Pakistan

Chief Minister’s House, Lahore - Pakistan

Civil Secretariat, Lahore - Pakistan

Standard Charter Bank, Lahore - Pakistan & Singapore

Union Bank Ltd.  Lahore, Faisalabad - Pakistan

United Bank Ltd. Zonal Office, Lahore - Pakistan

Punjab Provincial Co-operative Bank Ltd. Lahore - Pakistan

Registrar Office, Punjab Provincial Co-operative Societies, Lahore-Pakistan

World Bank Washington DC., USA

Deputy Commissioner’s Office, Chakwal - Pakistan

Police Rest House, Kalar Kahar - Pakistan

Saga Sports, Sialkot - Pakistan

Commissioner’s Office, Faisalabad - Pakistan

Commissioner’s Office, Sialkot - Pakistan

Commissioner’s Office, Gujranwala - Pakistan

Deputy Commissioner’s Office, Kasur - Pakistan

Walled City Project, Lahore - Pakistan

Murree Development Project, Head Office, Lahore - Pakistan

Rupali Habib Bank, Lahore - Pakistan

The Lahore Museum, Lahore - Pakistan

The Karachi Museum, Karachi - Pakistan

Forest Rest House, Murree, Islamabad - Pakistan

Chairman FATA, Peshawar - Pakistan

Chief Minister’s Secretariat, Chandigarh - India

Chief Secretary Office, Chandigarh - India

Fine Arts Museum Punjab University, Chandigarh - India

Government Museum and Art Gallery, Chandigarh - India

Fine Arts Museum, Punjabi University, Patiala - India

Fine Arts Museum, Guru Nanak Dev University, Amritsar - India

Pearl Continental Hotel, Rawalpindi - Pakistan

Holiday Inn, Lahore - Pakistan

 

COMMISSIONED PROJECTS:

Punjab Social Security Hospital, Lahore

Walled City Project, Lahore

Commissioner’s house, D.G. Khan

Civil Secretariat, Lahore

Standard Charted Bank, Lahore

Punjab Provincial Co-operative Banks Ltd. Lahore

Deputy Commissioner’s office, Chakwal

Saga Sports, Sialkot

 

ACHIEVEMENTS:

1.    Shield from Unicef for the best calendar designing for FMC on Child Labour, 1988

2.    1st prize in cash for the best designing of Poster and Stamp for the Ministry of Culture Govt. of Iran, 1991

3.    Award for the best poster designing for the Centenary of the Lahore Museum, 1994

4.    Shield for the best designing of monogram for the Pakistan Society of Food Scientists and Technologists, 1994

5.    Certificate with cash prize for the best monogram designing of Royal School of Arts & Crafts Govt. of U.A.E., 1994

6.    Award with cash prize for the best designing of monogram for City Tourism Corporation Govt. of Cuba, 1996

7.    NFAC Award for the best Calendar designing for FMC for the Year, 1997

8.    Award for the best logo designing for (OIC) Organization of Islamic Countries’ Special Summit in Islamabad, 1997

9.    Award for best stamp designing for (OIC) Organization of Islamic Countries’ Special Summit in Islamabad, 1997

10.   NCCA Award for the best poster designing of Pakistan’s Golden Jubilee Celebrations, 1997

11.   NFAC Award for the best illustrations of the FMC Calendar, 1998

12.   NCCA Award for the best poster designing of Marry Gold Bread, 1998

13.   WPC award for the best artist of the year, 2005

14.   Award for the best poster designing for Horse and Cattle Show

15.   Award for the best poster designing for the hundred years celebration of the Lahore Museum

 

 

A NEW VISUAL VOICE IN THE ART OF MINIATURE PAINTING

 

Life is an ever changing phenomenon. Every change brings its own inherent challenges in its wake. An artist, being a visionary, reacts to these changes and aspires to create something new, with a character of its own. In this struggle for contemporary image, he breaks from the traditional forms of the art and ideational process, bringing forth in his artistic expressions the inner essence of the spirit of his present-day experiences. Artists of today are more assertive in their expression. It was not so in the past, because the function of art was to decorate and glorify the lives of the higher echelons of the society. S.M. Mansoor is one such artist, who is rethinking and reworking on this visual echo to give it a contemporary feel and form.

 

I met Mansoor, the artistic genius from Pakistan, on the campus of the Punjabi University, Patiala, in the Department of Fine Arts (Kala Bhavan). The Punjabi University had invited him for a solo exhibition of his paintings as well as series of lectures about the “Contemporary art in Pakistan”. Availing this opportunity, he also conducted an art workshop to demonstrate the modern techniques of miniature. He revealed that he had been invited by the Fine Arts Department of the Punjab University for the same educational programme in Chandigarh. It was so pleasing hearing him talk sweet Lahori Panjabi. We swapped varied information while going round his exhibition. I was keen to learn about the contemporary art scene in Pakistan and the welfare of my artist friends, who had participated in the 1989 SAARC Camp hosted by India.

 

It was my first sight of the exhibition of his artistic masterpieces. I got interested in a deeper insight of his works, for he was from a renowned Miniaturist family. I believe this family is perhaps one of the oldest families pursuing the art of miniature painting not only on the Indo-Pak sub-continent, but it might also be true in the larger world perspective.

 

Mansoor is the sixth generation of this well-known family of the Patiala Gharana – the main source of inspiration for his painting. His grandfather Ustad Haji Muhammad Sharif was one of the legendary Pakistani artists. Haji’s father and his grandfather were the court painters in the State of Pepsu (Patiala) in undivided India. Mansoor’s father S.M. Zahoor was a master in the art of calligraphy. He excelled both in Urdu and English calligraphy. His father was contemporary of an artist named Muhammad Aziz, who was an adopted son of the renowned artist Ustad Allah Bux. Mansoor inherited this art from his father and grandfather, and then expressed it in his painting for the purpose of finding new forms and meanings in the present context of the time.

 

Mansoor’s urge to take the art of miniature painting into modern era is indeed laudable, but it is highly challenging. The art scene has undergone a big transition over a considerable period of time from the feudalistic patronage to the present autonomous set up. The practice of the art of miniature painting requires tremendous understanding, exquisite draftsmanship and creative imagination. One can hope for an innovative harmony and interaction of tradition and modernity through the medium of miniature painting, which remained at its zenith for more than three hundred years in the Mogul Court, and then in the Patiala State. Despite its small format, it shows how the creators of these dazzling delights were gigantic in their imagination and greater still in their humble anonymity. In the sparkle of these jewels of art, we can know the genius of our artists through their depiction of an amazing richness of our heritage and culture.

 

Tradition and modernity are not opposed to each other as is generally believed, but they are bound by a thread. This thread not only strengthens the roots, but also ensures its extension. A thorough understanding of this bond is absolutely vital to the proper assimilation of the artistic expressions. Whereas the tradition is a constant reminder to our glorious past, the modernity creates new vistas to galvanize the creative energy. Emerging out of the two situations, with the best of both the worlds, is not that easy as it appears to be. Tradition serves as a stimulant for the artist to realize that the modern vision moves within the greater vision of the art, hankering for an artistic expression.

 

S. M. Mansoor is an artist, having the bestowal of the vision of his ancestors, whose succeeding regenerations have been enriching the art of miniature painting in India and Pakistan. Deriving strength from the haloed past of his forefathers, Mansoor works at two levels: First, gleaning the jewels from the past and then finding a suitable place to stud them in his compositions set in the present scenario; second, he is using the miniature format to embellish his feelings through the calligraphic gestures with a certain amount of freedom at his command. Luxuriant picturization, unsubdued colouring, decorative designs, sheer lyricism and romance – some of the hallmarks of our miniature painting can be observed in Mansoor’s works, applied to conjoin tradition with modernity.

 

There are compositions where he uses familiar figures and motifs from the famous miniature paintings of his family, assimilating them into an idea or situation existing in his mind. His miniatures take birth from the centre enclosed by the multi-layered-wash coloured space. The line that has been the strength of the miniature painter in the delineation of figures and objects has made way for more painterly treatment of the form and colour in Mansoor’s output that also characterizes a sense and sensibility, which is both contemporary and modern in substance. Women still adore the doors and windows in his paintings. They are often observed in the company of deer or proud peacocks to ward off loneliness. Men and women, horsemen and elephant riders, architecture, landscape and decorative borders do take us to our courtly past, but not without the promise to bring us back to the present time. This promise is more eloquent in a number of paintings where Mansoor has painted subjects focusing on the day-to-day life. Figures, in the interpretation and projection of different states and situations remain as active participants with vibrant movements and intense energy. Here the artist has tried to free himself from the past to interact with the present.

 

There are miniatures in which the artist has shown a distinct departure from the past. Here the spirit of creativity revels in the spacious freedom of expression. Past is here not as a straw that breaks the camel’s back, but a power to generate the intrinsic urge for registering an artistic expression. It is in paintings like these that Mansoor has shown his versatility as a painter, in whose veins runs the blood of the six generations of creators. There are miniatures where tradition serves as a stimulant. Thus, giving the artist a power to realize the modern vision and create in the language of his ancestors with a refreshing and spontaneous fragrance of his own times. Elements of abstraction in these miniatures not only make them distinct from the conventional approach to miniature painting, but also help in making them things of an undiminished beauty in terms of their potent aesthetic appeal.

 

And in the sequential centralized compositions, you experience the joy and pride of life permeating the past and present. Another interesting feature is the shift of focus from the courtly life to the life of ordinary human beings over the centuries, which gave more autonomy to the artist in expressing his ideas and thoughts.

 

Mansoor, 47, is a Lahore-born artist, which is one the few cities viewed by Adam from the hillock of paradise before descending to earth after the Original Sin. He is neither obsessed with the past, nor in favour of grinding his colours or using secret recipes by making use of minerals or metals like gold or plants, as was the case with the traditional artists of yester-years. He is of the firm opinion that in today’s world technology has played a vital role in the refinement of the traditional methods of making paper, colours and brushes. “Artists of today are now better equipped,” says Mansoor, “and they can use their creative time for such a painting, which otherwise was consumed by the lengthy process of making paper and colours, etc.” He uses watercolours, oil, pastels, acrylics and collage work in the mixed media on the cardboard, and is satisfied with his artistic expressions in the miniature format.

 

Prem Singh

(Art Critic) New Delhi - India

The Daily Nation, Lahore - Pakistan