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Abdul Rahman Chughtai
Traditional Painter
Pakistan
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Born in 1899, Pakistan; he comes from a family which for generations has produced architects, engineers, painters and decorators.
His individual style was formed in the years before 1947, so the main body of his work was produced before Pakistan was born: Persian and Mongol Traditional Style
Chughtai admitted himself to Lahore's Mayo School of Art, which then emphasized crafts more than art. He did not stay there very long and started learning on his own, concentrating on the traditional methods and techniques of Mongol artists. Then, he moved on to Calcutta and worked there foe several years, painting in Bengal School Style.
By 1923, when he was only 24, he started developing his style of drawing luscious, languid, narcissus-eyes and stylized figures with erotic overtones and heavy with fictional contents.
He also introduced him to some of Western art techniques, chiefly as practiced by Victorian artists, and to the cave painting of Ajanta, which were then in process of being re-discovered by contemporary painters.
It was in formative phase of his career that Chughtai imbibed certain stylization and mannerism, including extensive use of architectural motifs and pictorial nuances, which mark his illustrational paintings of this period.
In 1927, Chughtai published Muraqqa, his first major work, which comprised a series of illustrations he made for new edition of the thought-heavy and highly imaginative verses of Ghalib, 19th century " poet's poet" of Urdu and Persian.
Early in the thirties Chughtai visited Europe, researching on painting; also did a few years later.
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