COLIN DAVID | UNTITLED

Acquired in Karachi circa 2008

M. Husain, The Art of Colin David, AL-ABBAS International, 2016, illustration p. 204

Colin David was one of Pakistan's most popular artists belonging to a generation of outstanding painters that emerged from the Punjab University and the National College of Arts in the 1960s. He went on to study at the Slade School of Art in London under the tutelage of English realist painter and a long-standing art teacher, Sir William Menzies Coldstream. David was most famous for his figurative nudes. The current painting is a classic example. He attempted to never paint his nudes in isolation; they were always part of a larger composition with an object such as a pillow, cone, ball or other shapes to show movement and optical illusion. He was a master of color. Here we see generally neutral shades with a pop of color in the form of orange and green objects- typical of his works.

'He painted nudes in his art, but they carry the eternal innocence of being beautiful, to interpret virtuousness of a goddess, to incarnate the allegory of an ‘Aphrodite’. The naturalistic colors and symphonized compositions with a touch of Surrealist approach, made him the standalone master of his own style — Colin David, the unsung hero of Pakistani art.' (N. Alam,'The artist extraordinaire: The unsung hero,' DAWN, 26 June 2016, https://www.dawn.com/news/1266937)