
Priya Singh
Head of Department
This auction has ended. View lot details


Sold for £2,304 inc. premium
Our Modern & Contemporary South Asian Art specialists can help you find a similar item at an auction or via a private sale.
Find your local specialist
Head of Department

Cataloguer
Provenance
Property from a private collection, UK.
Mehdi was celebrated for his exquisite pencil-on-paper portraits of women as evidenced here, capturing their grace, beauty, and depth with remarkable precision. His mastery of shading and fine detailing brought his subjects to life, often portraying women with expressive eyes, delicate features, and intricate traditional attire. Mehdi's portraits not only reflected technical brilliance but also conveyed emotions, cultural richness, and a deep appreciation for feminine elegance. His ability to blend realism with subtle artistic interpretation make his work timeless.
'Mehedi migrated to Pakistan in 1962 and two years later, at the age of eighteen, he declared himself a professional artist. He had no institutional art training but had learned by watching his father (a shikari, or hunter) draw animals and wildlife. His aesthetic taste and style have been moulded by four European visits to learn western technique and several years as an illustrator for the now defunct Lail-O-Nahar. Mehdi's fifteen solo exhibitions, starting at the Karachi Arts Council in 1969, and held in Europe and Hong Kong as well as in Pakistan have included as many as two hundred works in one showing... Though his female portraits represent his best work, Mehdi also paints genre scenes and cultural themes ranging from local potters to polo players.(Marcella Nesom Sirhandi, Contemporary Painting in Pakistan, Ferozsons Pvt. Ltd., 2006, pg. 145
For a similar work sold on these premises see Modern & Contemporary South Asian Art, 4th June 2019, Lot 17.