Ismail Gulgee was born in Peshawar, Pakistan in the year 1926 and turned out to be a renowned painter of the Indian subcontinent The self-taught Gulgee began to paint while studying engineering in the USA, without receiving any formal education in art or painting

 

He earned international acclaim and was commissioned to portray political leaders of his contemporary time such as the Afghan Royal Family, US former presidents Jimmy Carter and George H W Bush, the Shah of Iran, King Hussein of Jordan, King Faisal of Saudi Arabia, Pakistani leaders Zulifqar Ali Bhutto and General Ayub Khan, etc

 

For his education, he enrolled in Lawrence College Murree then went on to pursue civil engineering at Aligarh University and later he flew to the United States for higher studies at Columbia and Harvard University  

 

While in America he started to paint and trained himself over a while, he held his first exhibition in Stockholm in 1950 After returning from the USA, he held another solo exhibition near his hometown, Warsak A revered portraitist and abstract artist, he has painted 151 portraits of Afghan royal family members and the Saudi royal family And so, he earned the title, “the court painter of Pakistan” Admission to a museum erected to house his works is issued on invitation only; the Gulgee museum is located in Karachi 

 

He was inspired by the American painter Elaine Hamilton who held an exhibition in Karachi on the theme of abstract expressionism Soon, he adapted and combined calligraphic abstraction and mystical Sufism in his art form 

 

His abstract paintings display the influence of Islamic calligraphy while his mixed-media paintings incorporate mirror glass or gold leaf among brightly coloured designs in oil paint He has exhibited his creations all over the world and has been felicitated in Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Japan and France for his art

 

He also experimented with sculpture in the late 1960s and was commissioned to create huge bronze works of Koranic verses and Islamic symbols for Islamabad’s Shah Faisal mosque and the work got executed in 1986

 

The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City stated, “Gulgee's calligraphy paintings are abstract and gestural interpretations of Arabic and Urdu letters His sweeping layers of paint explore the formal qualities of oil paint while they make references to Islamic design elements” Eager to ensure his art legacy, the Gulgee Art Gallery was built in Clifton, Karachi  

 

The artist passed away in the year 2007