A heritage in colour — from Mughal courts to today’s galleries
Karachi · Lahore · Islamabad
Painting in Pakistan
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From the jewelled gardens of Mughal miniatures to the calligraphic storms of Sadequain — this is the story of a nation’s brush: centuries of colour, faithfully kept.
NCA Lahore · Est. 1875
6 Living Traditions
Centuries of Miniature Art
A new nation, a new canvas
Season exhibition (sample)
A Living Tradition
Painting on this land begins in the imperial ateliers of the Mughals, where miniaturists painted gardens, courts and epics on wasli paper with brushes of a single hair. When Pakistan appeared on the map in 1947, its painters took up that inheritance and gave a young nation its first portraits of itself.
Lahore’s Mayo School of Arts — founded in 1875 and today the National College of Arts — became the hearth of this revival, while Karachi’s presses carried the story to the world: it was here that Pakistan Publications printed the classic volume Painting in Pakistan, the very book that inspires this page.
- Miniature lineages from the Mughal ateliers
- Modern masters of Lahore & Karachi
- Truck art — the people's moving gallery
NCA founded in Lahore as the Mayo School of Arts
A new nation takes up the brush
Living traditions traced on this page
Legendary masters profiled below
Four Ages of the Brush
The Miniature Courts
In Mughal and regional ateliers, master miniaturists perfect an art of gardens, emperors and epics — painted to be held in the hand and read like poetry.
The 1947 Awakening
A new flag, a new canvas. Chughtai’s romantic watercolours and a generation of Lahore painters give the young nation its first visual identity.
The Modern Masters
1950s–1980s: Sadequain turns calligraphy into monument, Shakir Ali brings modernism home, and Pakistani art takes its place on the world’s walls.
Contemporary Voices
Today the tradition refuses to sit still — from the riotous colour of truck art to new media, Pakistan’s painters keep reinventing their inheritance.
Hands That Shaped a Nation
A. R. Chughtai
1897 – 1975
The romantic watercolourist whose flowing line gave the new nation its first visual poetry — famed for illustrating Ghalib and the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam.
Sadequain
1930 – 1987
The calligraphic giant. His vast murals and feverish line turned sacred script into pure, monumental painting across Pakistan’s public walls.
Shakir Ali
1916 – 1975
Called the father of modern art in Pakistan — a modernist painter and principal of the NCA who taught a generation to see anew.
Anna Molka Ahmed
1917 – 1994
Pioneer and educator who founded fine arts at the University of the Punjab, painting with a fierce, expressionist energy all her own.
Six Living Traditions
Miniature Painting
Wasli paper, single-hair brushes, worlds in the palm of a hand.
Calligraphic Art
The written word set free — script as rhythm, monument and prayer.
Truck Art
Peacocks, roses and poetry on the move — Pakistan’s beloved folk gallery.
Landscape
From Ravi riverbanks to northern peaks, the land itself as subject.
Portraiture
Faces of poets, patrons and ordinary people, kept alive in paint.
Modern & Abstract
Geometry, gesture and experiment — the tradition thinking forward.
From the Collection
Evening in the Pavilion
Miniature style · Illustrative artwork (sample)
Letters in Gold & Rust
Calligraphic abstract · Illustrative artwork (sample)
The Highway Peacock
Truck art panel · Illustrative artwork (sample)
The Making of a Miniature
Preparing the Wasli
Sheets of paper are layered, pasted and burnished into a single smooth surface — the miniature’s quiet foundation.
The First Sketch
The composition is drawn in siyah qalam, the fine dark outline that will govern every colour to come.
Colours from Nature
Pigments from stone, earth, shell and gold are ground by hand and laid down in patient, translucent washes.
The Final Line
Days — sometimes months — of detailing end with the outlines and highlights that make a miniature glow.
What Visitors Say
“In these paintings, Pakistan sees its own face — proud, poetic and impossibly colourful.”
Gallery Visitor · Lahore (sample)
“Chughtai ki line aur Sadequain ka qalam — ye hamari pehchan hai. Har student ko ye dekhna chahiye.”
Art Student · Karachi (sample)
“The truck art gallery alone is worth the journey. Folk art at its most joyful and generous.”
Visiting Curator · London (sample)
Visit the Collection
The collection travels between our three city galleries. Book a guided tour and walk through four ages of Pakistani painting with our curators.
Karachi · Lahore · Islamabad (sample)
Tue – Sun: 10:00 AM – 8:00 PM (sample)
visit@paintinginpakistan.pk (sample)
Request Your Visit
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Preserving the colours of a nation — inspired by the classic volume published by Pakistan Publications, Karachi.
© 2026 Painting in Pakistan. All rights reserved.