Posthumous Nishan-e-Imtiaz for Sadequain
San Diego, CA: President Dr Arif Alvi will confer a posthumous Nishan-e-Imtiaz award on Sadequain for showing excellence in his field of work, according to a press release issued by the President House.
Nishan-e-Imtiaz is the highest civil award in the field of arts.
According to the Press Release, the awards, announced on Pakistan’s Independence Day, will be conferred on the recipients at an investiture ceremony to take place on the Pakistan Day, i.e., March 23, 2021.
According to a SADEQUAIN Foundation press release, a rt and culture are the identity of a nation. By all measures, Sadequain was the finest ambassador of the nation’s identity.
In his lifetime he was recognized and acknowledged on the five continents. Not many Pakistanis can make this claim.
The government of Pakistan has established three institutions in Sadequain’s name in Karachi, Lahore, and Islamabad. Not many Pakistanis can make this claim.
In his lifetime Sadequain was a celebrity and a household name in Pakistan. He gave more to the nation than any man or woman. But within a few years after he passed away in 1987, his name faded from the collective memory of the nation. He should have been the face of the nation recognized around the globe, but sadly, he became a stranger in his own country.
Sadequain was a polymath, a confluence of Picasso, Michelangelo, Omar Khayyam, and calligrapher Yakoot. Likes of him are not born for centuries. His work was unique like none other, innovative, and by all measures, difficult to duplicate.
His paintings were worth a thousand words and valued at more than a billion dollars. But he never sold them and instead gave them away to mostly undeserving individuals and institutions. He died penniless by choice.
Until as recently as 2012, there were no catalogs of his more than 45 monumental murals of herculean proportions testament to Sadequain’s super natural powers. Most murals were donated by him to institutions such as Lahore Museum, Frere Hall, Punjab University, Aligarh Muslim University, Banaras Hindu University, National Geophysical Research Institute in Hyderabad Deccan, and many more.
There was no catalog of more than 15,000 pieces of intellectually and contextually rich artworks he made and gave them away, mistakenly thinking the beneficiaries of his generosity will take care of his legacy.
As a poet Sadequain composed more than 4,000 Urdu quatrains. He was pronounced the most important modern-day poet of Urdu rubai by Indian professor of Urdu literature in his book titled Tanqeed-e-Rubai.
Alarmed and dismayed by the dire situation SADEQUAIN Foundation USA was established in May 2007 in San Diego, California with the stated goals of discovering, preserving, and promoting Sadequain around the globe. The Foundation launched an exhaustive search to locate thousands of pieces of Sadequain’s artworks in places as far as Singapore, Hong Kong, India, Middle East, Austria, Switzerland, France, England, USA, Canada, and more.
The Foundation has so far published 22 books on Sadequain’s life and various aspects of his work.
The book titled The Saga of SADEQUAIN is the largest volume on the subject of art ever published in Pakistan. It has been recommended by Pakistan Foreign Office to all its embassies.
The book titled The Legend of SADEQUAIN is a representation of SADEQUAIN’s innovative calligraphic style called Khatt-e- SADEQUAINi.
The book titled Lines and Drawings II is the largest collection of drawings ever published in Pakistan.
In short, the Foundation has produced more literature on Sadequain than any other entity.
The Foundation has also hosted more than 70 seminars, book launches, and exhibitions in the USA, Canada, UK, France, Dubai, Pakistan, and India.
In February 2017, the Foundation crossed a major milestone after laboring for 6 long years of red tape and spending more than $50,000 on repairs of Frere Hall, donating more than 50 pieces of artworks representing a wide range of SADEQUAIN’s palette and establishing Galerie SADEQUAIN at Frere Hall. This is the only location in Pakistan where the general public has unrestricted access to SADEQUAIN’s artworks.
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