mages are to visual artists what words are to writers. They arrange, manipulate, repeat and shuffle the elements of their visual vocabulary so that, like the letters of a language, they can create, construct and convey fictional worlds. Even after the artist is gone, images, like text, linger. They become a means of communicating with generations yet to come.

Which generations? Contemporaries, followers, students, art historians, critics and curators inherit the work. As we know, many artists have faded from memory over time. Their work still exists, yet few people can name its maker. Their creations are scarcely mentioned in art books; monographs devoted to them have become outdated, if they have not gone out of print altogether. A fortunate few warrant a passing mention in art history. In some cases, the market value of their work has also declined. The pieces they produced have come to be regarded as objects to be discarded.

Forgetfulness is neither new nor confined to one society. I remember collecting publications on European and American artists during my college years. Many of those names now seem like a currency no longer in circulation. The same has happened with Indian artists. Some of them once occupied centre stage, only to make way for the next generation of celebrated names. Rightly or wrongly, one has seen this happen so often that it appears natural, almost beyond question.

The history of art in Pakistan, divided into the periods before and after 1971, has its own share of practitioners who now seem destined to remain neglected. There are many reasons for this. No matter how much fame or success they enjoyed in their lifetimes, time has altered their standing, reducing many to footnotes, if they are mentioned at all. This happens despite the efforts of their descendants to preserve their legacy and galleries to sustain interest in their work. The art market has its own ways of reviving forgotten names, not least by encouraging forgers who regularly produce ‘new’ works by dead masters. Showing remarkable audacity, a gallery is known to have sold identical paintings by a deceased artist to two different clients.

Not surprisingly, some artists themselves encouraged, trained and even took pride in assistants who replicated their imagery or entire works. Such copies might deceive an amateur, but rarely an informed eye. In most cases, the popular, or, rather, safe, subjects, such as calligraphy, cityscapes, rural scenes, seascapes and decorative still life, have been produced in large numbers by studio assistants. Even today, modest framing shops in Lahore’s Main Market, Karachi’s Khadda Market and Islamabad’s Super Market display hastily produced versions of these familiar images.

One wonders why, unlike these technically demanding works, which require careful observation, painterly skill and a command of colour, there are so few reproductions of artists whose work would appear easier to imitate. This is especially true of two of Pakistan’s major artists, Iqbal Geoffrey and Salahuddin Mian. Both were widely recognised during their lifetimes. Geoffrey, a trained lawyer as well as an acclaimed conceptual and multidisciplinary artist, left behind a vast body of singular collages and mixed-media works that testify to his extraordinary place in Pakistani art. Salahuddin Mian, a respected artist and professor at the National College of Arts, left an equally significant legacy of ceramics, glazed paintings and sculpture.

Yet the names and work of these two artists rarely figure in contemporary art circles. Few art students, whether at the NCA, Beaconhouse National University, the Indus Valley School of Art and Architecture or Punjab University, are familiar with them. The same is true of many teachers, artists, writers and emerging curators.

It is worth pausing to consider their gradual and unfortunate disappearance from public memory. This is despite the publication of several monographs on Iqbal Geoffrey; his exhibitions at galleries in Pakistan and abroad; and his inclusion in major survey exhibitions such as The Other Story, curated by Rasheed Araeen at the Hayward Gallery, London (1989-90); Beyond Borders: Art from Pakistan at the National Gallery of Modern Art, Mumbai (2005); and, most recently, Manzar: Art and Architecture from Pakistan, 1940s to Today at the National Museum of Qatar (2024-25).

Salahuddin Mian was similarly well documented. Edited by Noorjehan Bilgrami, the Born of Fire monograph was devoted to his work. Bilgrami also curated his posthumous retrospective at the Zahoor-ul Akhlaq Gallery, NCA, in 2008. His work features extensively in The Glaze, published by The Furqaan Ahmed Collection and his ceramics and sculptures were included in the third Lahore Biennale and exhibited at the Lahore Museum in 2025.

Yet the work of neither artist is regularly seen, nor has it attracted counterfeiters (this is neither an invitation nor a suggestion). The art market has little appetite for it. Their refined aesthetics place them outside the endlessly revolving wheel of speculation and fashion. In any serious history of Pakistani art, both would undoubtedly occupy a much higher place.

The most plausible explanation for their gradual disappearance from Pakistan’s dominant art scene is that they remained independent figures. They never cultivated a circle of disciples, although Salahuddin Mian, the first graduate of the National College of Arts, taught there until his retirement. The work of both artists was, however, collected by those with discerning taste and a deeper understanding of art.

Perhaps because of the sophistication of their ideas and technique, reproducing their work never became a popular enterprise. Copying one of Geoffrey’s collages or throwing a pot in the manner of Mian is, in fact, less demanding than imitating one of Ustad Allah Bux’s crowded landscapes, an intricate miniature by Abdur Rahman Chughtai or a painting or lyrical drawing by Sadequain. The market is flooded with convincing forgeries of these artists, many of which have misled buyers into believing they were acquiring originals.

The most important reason Iqbal Geoffrey and Salahuddin Mian have slipped from the mainstream discourse on Pakistani art is that neither sought recognition through awards or corporate commissions. They worked with honesty and conviction, producing art that reflected their personalities. Both were regarded as difficult men, unwilling to be diplomatic in their dealings.

Geoffrey was often mistaken for a lawyer intent on dragging his opponents to court, although he himself maintained that he had filed fewer than 20 cases during his entire career. Mian, meanwhile, acquired a reputation as a teacher who never guided his students. He, however, lamented that he rarely found students capable of appreciating the sensitivity of the craft.

In a nutshell, the lives and work of both artists, two sides of the same coin, were never smooth. The phrase recalls Byung-Chul Han’s Saving Beauty, in which the Korean-born German philosopher writes: “What is smooth does not injure. Nor does it offer any resistance. It is looking for like.”

Fortunately, both artists died before the overwhelming spread of social media. Otherwise, they would almost certainly have attracted more dismissal than likes and followers – the metrics by which so many artists now measure their standing in local and international art circles.

The writer is a visual artist, an art critic, a curator and a professor at the School of Visual Arts and Design, Beaconhouse National University, Lahore. He can be contacted at [email protected].