At ThinkFest, a conversation unfolded that was less a formal panel and more an intimate journey through Pakistan’s modern art history. Visual artist Sabah Husain and American art historian Marcella Nesom Sirhandi came together to trace the lives, works, and legacies of women artists who not only defined artistic movements but also reshaped institutions, pedagogy, and cultural thought across borders.

Rather than offering a comprehensive survey, the speakers curated a selective, chronological narrative of sixteen artists, women whose practices introduced new media, challenged conventions, founded galleries, taught generations, and connected Pakistan’s art scene to global currents.

The journey began before Partition, with Amrita Sher-Gil, a towering figure of South Asian modernism. Born to a Hungarian mother and Punjabi Sikh father, Sher-Gil trained in Paris and absorbed European modernist influences, particularly Cézanne and Matisse. Yet her true transformation occurred after her return to India in 1935, when her work drew deeply from South Asian traditions such as Basohli miniatures. Her village scenes and portraits broke radically from colonial academic styles, creating a hybrid visual language that continues to influence artists across Pakistan and India. Her untimely death in Lahore at just twenty-nine only deepened her mythic stature.

Post-Partition Pakistan saw the........

© Naya Daur