An undated photograph of Prof Anna Molka Ahmed, a legendary Pakistani artist and the founder of the Department of Fine Arts (now the College of Art and Design) at the University of Punjab.
Born to Jewish parents – a Polish mother and a Russian father – in London, she went to the St Martin School of Arts to study painting, sculpture and design, before making Lahore her home.
Geeti Sen writes the following about Anna Molka Ahmed in her book Crossing Boundaries:
“By her own description, Anna Molka was a passionate expressionist painter of vigor working in heavy impasto oils. Anna Molka’s work, although academic in its European genres of still-life portraits and landscapes, also incorporated social, historical and mythological themes of her adopted country.
“Her dynamic personality made her a major force in the setting up of the Fine Arts Department, and in persuading women to take up art as a career, but even more so in the teaching of art as a profession. Until 1954, this department of the university was exclusively meant for women, and it trained a large number of teachers who set up a network of art departments in universities and colleges all over Pakistan. Many of them went abroad to well-known art schools and academies in the US, Britain, France and Spain.”
Born to Jewish parents – a Polish mother and a Russian father – in London, she went to the St Martin School of Arts to study painting, sculpture and design, before making Lahore her home.
Geeti Sen writes the following about Anna Molka Ahmed in her book Crossing Boundaries:
“By her own description, Anna Molka was a passionate expressionist painter of vigor working in heavy impasto oils. Anna Molka’s work, although academic in its European genres of still-life portraits and landscapes, also incorporated social, historical and mythological themes of her adopted country.
“Her dynamic personality made her a major force in the setting up of the Fine Arts Department, and in persuading women to take up art as a career, but even more so in the teaching of art as a profession. Until 1954, this department of the university was exclusively meant for women, and it trained a large number of teachers who set up a network of art departments in universities and colleges all over Pakistan. Many of them went abroad to well-known art schools and academies in the US, Britain, France and Spain.”