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Anwar Jalal Shemza (b. 1928, Simla, India – d. 1985, Stafford, UK) was born in Simla, India to Kashmiri and Punjabi parents. Shemza attended Mayo School of Arts in Lahore, Pakistan, graduating in 1947. In 1956, already an established artist and writer in his home land, he relocated to England to study at the Slade School of Fine Art. This move marked a significant change in the artist’s life and practice. While studying he was astonished to hear one of his lecturers, famed art historian E. H. Gombrich, characterise Islamic art as purely functional. This was a pivotal moment, leading Shemza to abandon previous work and embark on a journey to create a dramatically different style and visual language. His diasporic perspective allowed him to explore modernism through the double prism of Islamic and Western aesthetics. Throughout his career, Shemza’s visual vocabulary drew on an array of deeply studied and lived experience, from carpet patterns and calligraphic forms to the environments around him: Mughal architecture from Lahore and the rural landscapes of Stafford, England.
