Sadequain Masterpieces

The Mezzanine Floor of the State Bank Museum is dedicated to Sadequain Art Gallery. The Main Hall displayed three huge Murals and five metal collages made by Sadequain for SBP. On left hand side one can see the Photographs of Sadequain & his family and biography of Sadequain. The room on the left side displays one Mural, classification of Sadequain's work, decade wise display of Sadequain's artwork starting from 50's to 80's till the last sketch done at OMI Hospital, Karachi three days before he passed away.

A distinctive feature of Sadequain's artwork in the State Bank of Pakistan is the collection of collages, worked in wood and metal. He did it exclusively for the Bank. This kind of work by him is nowhere else to be seen. Sadequain made them especially to adorn and beautify the huge pillars of the vast Banking Hall of the SBP Karachi office's public dealing floor. On the background of wooden frames, Sadequain worked miracles twisting iron, copper and steel into artist's fertile imagination of figures of hope, aspiration and conquest. The running theme of these collages seems to be people's endeavors and progress in industry, agriculture, pursuit of knowledge and conquest of nature.

We are including publications in Sadequain's artistic contribution to the State Bank of Pakistan; as a number of publications of the decade of 60s to 70s have been adorned and glamorized by Sadequain's seemingly effortless efforts. The publications for the grand function of the inauguration of the then new building of the State Bank of Pakistan in Karachi in 1961 were all designed and illustrated by Sadequain.The brochure for the building called the golden brochure because of its gold color design and layout, sketches and the magnificent cover in which the whole building has been portrayed or scripted by writing Bank Daulat Pakistan in Urdu over and over again, all done by Sadequain. The invitation card of the program for the special train for the State Bank of Pakistan, which took the honored guests of foreign central banks from Karachi to Peshawar, the menus cards for dinners etc. nothing was too small for the giant of an artist which was Sadequain. When the State Bank started publishing its fortnightly house journal, its mast head was created by Sadequain. The Bank's lot of publication, statistical or financial, used Sadequain's artwork time and again with great effect.

Sadequain was able to take the Calligraphy to unprecedented heights, his rebellious soul may be credited for it, rather than the long standing family tradition of Calligraphy. Like Ibn-e-Muqla's achievement of bringing writing to the aesthetic perfection, Sadequain took the calligraphy to the new frontiers of boldness, vibrating with life that is more enthralling than enchanting. His mixing of classical Khats (scripts) with his abstract styled writing infused a new life in calligraphic arts in the subcontinent.