THE ESTATE OF ANWAR JALAL SHEMZA
1928-1985, IndiaAnwar Jalal Shemza (b.1928, Shimla-d.1985, Stafford. Lived and worked in Stafford) was already an established artist in Pakistan, when he arrived in Britain in the 1950s to study at the Slade. His experience in Britain, marked by an existential crisis, led him to abandon all that he had done before and look for a new direction and language – one which would embrace modernism and take account of his cultural identity. His paintings, drawings and prints explore abstraction, geometry and pattern – the basis of much traditional Islamic art – towards modernist exploration.
Anwar Jalal Shemza received his BFA from the Mayo School of Art (now National College of Arts) in Lahore, before enrolling at the Slade School of Art, London (1956). His work has been exhibited widely, in solo and group shows, including: Bradford District Museum & Galleries (2025); Art Mill Museum, Doha (2024); Tate, London (2024); Museum of Modern Art, New York (2024); La Biennale di Venezia, Venice (2024); William Morris Gallery, London (2023); British Museum, London (2023); Al Mureijah Art Spaces, Sharjah (2023); Deichtorhallen, Hamburg (2022); Tate Liverpool, Liverpool (2022); Barbican Centre, London (2022); Whitechapel Gallery, London (2022); Sharjah Biennial 14, Sharjah (2019); Manchester Art Gallery, Manchester (2019); The Whitworth, Manchester (2017-18); Haus der Kunst, Munich (2016-2017); 10th Gwangju Biennale, Gwangju (2014); Tate Britain, London (2015, 2012); Ikon, Birmingham (1999-2000); Birmingham City Museum, Birmingham (1997-8); Manchester Metropolitan University, Manchester (1992); Hayward Gallery, London (1989-90).
Public collections that hold Shemza’s work include Ashmolean Museum, Oxford; Birmingham Museum and Art Galleries, Birmingham; Bradford Museum and Art Galleries, Bradford; British Museum, London; Guggenheim Abu Dhabi; Herbert F Johnson Museum of Art, Cornell University, Ithaca; Lahore Museum, Lahore; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art, Middlesbrough; Minneapolis Institute of Art, Minneapolis; Museum of Modern Art, New York; Oriental Museum, Durham University, Durham; Sharjah Art Foundation, Sharjah; Tate Modern, London.
Courtesy Jhaveri Contemporary, Mumbai.
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