SADEQUAIN Foundation Launches SADEQUAIN Victim of Dereliction by Lahore Museum
This 300-page book is an obituary for Lahore Museum’s custodianship of Sadequain’s legacy; a slow and silent death presided over by neglect, indifference, and institutional incompetence, says an email message. It adds;.
Lahore Museum is the recipient of Sadequain’s priceless donations: murals, paintings, and calligraphies whose cultural value is beyond calculation and whose collective value runs into tens of millions of dollars. These works were entrusted to the museum not merely as objects, but as a national responsibility. That responsibility has been abdicated.
The museum’s refusal to cooperate with SADEQUAIN Foundation compounds this failure.
The Foundation’s effort to document and academically record Sadequain’s works should have been welcomed as a collaborative rescue mission. Instead, the museum chose obstruction over stewardship and secrecy over scholarship.
Lahore Museum failed to properly document, did not maintain a comprehensive inventory, and did not preserve transparent public record of what existed, in what condition, and where.
In museum practice, lack of documentation is not a minor administrative lapse, it is the first step toward loss, theft, and historical erasure. What is undocumented is effectively unprotected.
SADEQUAIN Foundation found the physical condition of the works was alarming. Canvases were ripping. Paint was peeling. Surfaces were deteriorating under unsuitable environmental conditions. These are not acts of fate; they are consequences of negligence. Museums exist precisely to prevent such decay, through climate control, conservation protocols, and routine condition assessments. Lahore Museum failed at the most basic level of its mandate.
Even more damning is the complete absence of a preservation strategy. There is no articulated plan for restoration, no timeline for conservation, no engagement with professional conservators, and no evidence of valuation or insurance.
This obituary records a death in progress, the death of responsibility, foresight, and respect for Pakistan’s greatest artist.
Established in 2007, SADEQUAIN Foundation is a not-for-profit organization dedicated to discovering, preserving, and promoting Sadequain’s art globally. To that end, the Foundation has published 25 books on Sadequain’s life and work, and curated more than 100 seminars and exhibitions around the globe resulting in resurrection of Sadequain from obscurity
Dr Salman Ahmad, an electrical engineer by profession who has spent more than thirty years working on nuclear missile technology in senior executive positions in the United States, founded the SADEQUAIN Foundation in June 2007 to catalog Sadequain’s work and introduce it to the world. He has authored 35 books on Sadequain. There are many more in the pipeline.
