Anwar Shemza

Anwar Jalal Shemza

Stafford, England

1956–85

Anwar Shemza, or Anwar Jalal Shemza as he was also known, completed his early education in India and made an impression on the emerging art scene in the newly formed state of Pakistan, as a founding member of the Lahore Art Circle. He moved to London in 1956 for the opportunity to study at the Slade School of Fine Art, to develop his art career in Europe. He eventually obtained a scholarship from the British Council which enabled him to continue his studies under the tutelage of the etcher and engraver Anthony Gross. It was during his art education in England that he encountered disparaging comments about ‘eastern’ art styles, after which he reassessed his identity as an artist, taking the drastic action of destroying his previous work. Art historian Ernst Gombrich stated that Islamic art was purely ‘functional’ in one of his lectures, a reductive remark that would encourage Shemza to explore artistic fusions of Islamic and European styles more deeply. In doing so, he refused to conform to hierarchies that emphasized western excellence over the technical and cultural value of other traditions.

Even though these issues presented him with a challenging context in which to live and work, his pieces were nonetheless the subject of both solo and group exhibitions at this time, alongside other artists such as F. N. Souza and also with the Pakistan Group London. In 1960 he spent a year in Karachi, Pakistan but, feeling unfulfilled, he returned to England, this time settling in Stafford in the West Midlands. He lived in Stafford for the rest of his career with his wife, Mary Taylor, also an artist, and their first daughter, Tasveer (his second daughter was born in 1981). He continued to teach and exhibit until his death in 1985 but arguably gained further acclaim posthumously. For instance, since his death he has been featured in exhibitions examining migration and Afro-Asian art in galleries in London and has also been the subject of a retrospective exhibition celebrating his career in Birmingham. Shemza’s granddaughter, Aphra Shemza, has noted the growing significance of her grandfather’s legacy and that of other artists whose work was situated in the circumstances of post-war Commonwealth immigration. For her, her grandfather’s role has come to symbolize a new era for British art in which western traditions and styles no longer shape conventions and expectations of what art ‘should’ be.