Zubeida Agha

Acquired in Pakistan by Jorma Kaukonen, Sr and Beatrice Kaukonen, 1950s

Thence by descent

Jorma Kaukonen, Sr was the Director of the Asia Foundation in Karachi, Pakistan from 1952-1956. His wife, Beatrice Love Kaukonen was an avid art collector. The attraction to Zubeida Agha’s work arose, first and foremost, from Beatrice’s interest in and support of women in the arts. In an environment where women artists were rarely visible, Agha stood out as a pioneer. One of the things that the Asia Foundation in Karachi tried to accomplish was raising awareness of evolving cultural movements. Supporting local artists and intellectual groups was part of that mission. Beatrice Kaukonen no doubt used her position as the Director’s wife to meet artists like Agha and support them. She continued to collect art long after she left Karachi. This work has remained in the family for more than six decades.

Zubeida Agha was born in Faisalabad in 1922 and was among the first Pakistani modern artists. She completed degrees in political science and philosophy at Kinnaird College, Lahore, and later attended the Lahore School of Fine Art. It was here that Agha was introduced to the study of Western art, becoming well-acquainted with the work of Pablo Picasso. 

Agha is said to have had a recurring dream about colors, and rich coloration was to become the mainstay of her art. (S. Ali, 'The grande dame of Pakistani art', Dawn, 25 January 2015, https://www.dawn.com/news/1158908) Her palette and boldly stylized aesthetic combined to form an emotive painting style, with her compositions exuding a sense of profound spirituality and calm.

Painted when Agha was just 24, Untitled is among the artist's earliest works, produced in the same seminal year that her brother, Agha Abdul Hamid, connected her with Mario Perlingieri. Perlingieri was an Italian prisoner of war in India and a student of Picasso, and his advice spurred Agha to begin painting ideas instead of subjects from life. Agha's paintings retained allusions to the tangible, but the present work is a rare example of her purer figurative work, painted on the cusp of her move to the more conceptual.

Untitled captures a tender moment of female companionship. The three women, united by a leftward bend in their hips, are presented in emotional and physical harmony. While the arms of the center figure reach out to her companions, the maroon hijab of the right-side woman sweeps gently across the canvas towards the green-clad woman, whose hand is placed carefully upon it. The figures' arms and hijabs are braided together, representing their inseparability from one another.

Three years later, Agha became the first artist to hold a solo exhibition of modern art in Pakistan, and critics said that she had 'arrive[d] at a shape that was simple yet it captured the rhythm of movement and the mood of her subjects.' (R. Naseer, ‘Zubeida Agha’, Archives of Women Artists, Research and Exhibitions, 2023, https://awarewomenartists.com/en/artiste/zubeida-agha/)