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Anna Molka Ahmed – The first female painter of Pakistan: When there is a talk about art the well-known name always comes in mind is the name of Anna Molka Ahmed who is the first woman painter of Pakistan. In general, she was an enthusiastic beacon for all the Artistes of the country and in Particular as a female artist. “In fact, she has been the facilitator of a movement that made the proactive role of women artists a possibility”. Writes Nilofur Farrukh (president of International Art Critics Association, Pakistan Section).

Background – Anna Molka Ahmed:

Professor Ana Molka was from those females artists who were present at the time of Independence of Pakistan 1947. She born as Molly Bridger in London to a Jewish family, her mother was Polish, and her father was Russian. She studied Painting, Sculpture, and design from the famous St. Martin School of Arts, London; get a Scholarship to the Royal Academy of Art. She embraced Islam at the age of 18 in 1935, before being married to Sheikh Ahmed, and got married in October 1939, continuing her study in London. In 1940 the couple moved to Lahore and besides painting, she started teaching Art at the University of Punjab. However, the marriage was ended in 1951 but she decided to stay in Pakistan in Lahore with her two daughters until her death.

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Paintings

Her Famous Paintings was;
1. THE HELL
2. HEAVEN
3. A Village outside Lahore

In 1940, she was the motive power in the setting up the Fine Art department in the Punjab University of Lahore. After independence, this institute will become a borstal institution for the woman artists of the country. In the Beginning, She was having only five or six Muslim students who were eager to learn the art. However, she approaches many colleges for searching and motivating for her art department. She provided her services to the art department until 1978. Most of her students like Colin David, AbrarTermizi, Ghulam Rasool, Shahnawaz Zaidi, and Javed Iqbal were the well-known artists in the country and most of them play their role internationally.

Anna Molka Ahmed – Career

She started giving art classes to the students in the evening at Lahore Arts Council (Alhamra) and after some time started giving art classes in a village that is near to Lahore. Her constant struggles lead to the up-gradation of art education from B.A to M.A in the Fine Art department at Punjab University.

In Pakistan feminist art capturing courage and strength only because of these ladies who made it a trend far away from gender discrimination. This was not easy, as a large number of women had to make many efforts to get women on the top of many reputable posts. Anna Molka Ahmed has been from those women.

Except for painting, she was a zealous gardener. She is much prominent in the garden, cutting edges if the plants in new and adding an artistic taste in it, and going on painting and gardening till her final time until she was restricted by the doctors because it was affecting her health very poorly. She died in Lahore on 21 April 1994.

Anna Molka Ahmed – Female Painter

Recalling Ana, Professor Dr. Saadat Saeed Urdu Department Ankara University Turkey
Writes, “She used to treat her subjects boldly. Her grand paintings contain sparks of her domineering and impressive personality. Her impressionistic technique blended with expressionistic tones and shades made her work unique. The suggestiveness of her knife was creative. She chose a knife to paint in preference to smooth brushes and made her style so unique that the audience could do nothing but stand and wonder. The style originated by her was so unusual in its essence that art critics declared her work far better than the work done by most of her contemporary artists”.

Art Work

She used the field of drawing, painting, graphic arts, sculpture, and design. She was known as a specialist in the branch of still life, animal nature, and figures. The material she used to paint are watercolor, gouache, fresco, tempera, oil, wax, mosaic to create exclusive and admiring portraits, still life, landscape, figure compositions, and paintings of the animals. She liked to paint solitude, loneliness, alienation, mannerism, sufferings, and sadness in the respect of the urban landscape. Many of her paintings exemplify the materialistic life around us. She usually loves to paint the poetry and suppose to write the sceneries. She usually used bright and appealing colors in her paintings.
In the later part of her life, she wrote poetry.

Daylight after night.
Spring when birds sing.
Sunshine after rain.
So with life’s pain.
And confidence does not wane.
And courage sustains.

She played her vital role at the beginning of art development in Pakistan. She has awarded many national awards. In 1963, she got Tagma-i-Imtiaz, In 1969, she got president’s award of Pride of performance and also got khudejaTulkbra Medal. In her honor, Pakistan post issued an Rs. 40 sheetlet stamps on 14 August 2006 to ten painters of Pakistan. Except for Anna Molka Ahmed, the other painters were: Laila Shahzada, AskariMianIrani, Sadequain, Ali Imam, Shakir Ali, Zahoorul Akhlaq, Zubeida Agha, Ahmed Pervez, and Bashir Mirza.

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