KARACHI: When Pakistani artist Sadequain returned from an exhibition tour of the Arab world in 1974, the treasure he brought home was a bundle of newspapers, his nephew recalls.

More than five decades later, those pages remain part of the family’s archive.

Preserved at Sultan Ahmed Naqvi’s Karachi home, the fading clippings, photographs and exhibition records trace a journey through Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and other Arab countries, where Sadequain presented Qur’anic calligraphy as modern painting.

The tour connected one of Pakistan’s most influential artists with audiences who shared the language of his inscriptions, but encountered it through his distinctive treatment of letters, space and form. Exhibition histories record appearances in Jeddah, Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Cairo, Beirut, Damascus, Amman, Kuwait and Baghdad.

“The Government of Pakistan developed a program under which Sadequain would visit different countries, including Egypt, Kuwait, Abu Dhabi, Saudi Arabia and Jordan, to hold exhibitions,” Naqvi, 76, told Arab News.

“He returned empty-handed, carrying a bundle of newspapers… He said, ‘This is what I have earned from there. These are the newspapers.’”

For Naqvi, the collection preserves both an artistic itinerary and his uncle’s conviction that appreciation could matter more than payment.

The records include reports on the exhibitions, photographs and material identifying venues such as Markazul Funoon in Jeddah, the Municipal Library Hall in Dubai and the Hilton Hotel in Abu Dhabi.

“He certainly received considerable appreciation there, and the coverage published by newspapers in those countries is evidence of that reception,” Naqvi said.

LETTERS AS PAINTING

Born in Amroha in British India in 1930, Syed Sadequain Ahmed Naqvi migrated to Pakistan after partition. Known simply as Sadequain, he became a painter, muralist, calligrapher and poet whose work crossed national borders well before the Arab tour.

By the early 1960s, he had exhibited in Paris and London. His work also appeared in an illustrated edition of Albert Camus’s “L’Étranger,” or “The Stranger,” published in France in 1966.

His calligraphic practice drew on a different inheritance: a family tradition of writing Qur’anic manuscripts, according to Naqvi. By the late 1960s, Sadequain was developing an approach that treated Arabic lettering as a source of painterly expression as well as a means of conveying sacred text.

“He took calligraphy beyond its traditional association with sacred buildings and made it part of modern art,” Naqvi said.

His interpretations included Surah Yaseen and Surah Ar-Rahman, chapters of the Qur’an. Repeated words and phrases became expressive visual forms, bringing the written text into a modern artistic vocabulary.

The traveling exhibitions required a practical adaptation, too. Instead of transporting every work in a heavy frame, Sadequain rolled some pieces for the journey.

“He would simply roll up the work and take it with him,” Naqvi said. “He called this his ‘Air Mail Edition.’”

The Pakistan National Council of the Arts’ chronology also records an “Air Mail Edition” prepared for the 1974 Middle East exhibitions.

ART BEYOND PRIVATE COLLECTIONS

Sadequain’s relationship with the Gulf continued beyond the tour. He later produced a monumental calligraphic mural for the Umm Al Nar power station in Abu Dhabi, extending a body of work made for institutions rather than domestic walls.

His murals also became part of universities, museums and other buildings in Pakistan and India. At Lahore Museum, he donated a rendition of Surah Yaseen extending across 260 feet of wooden panels.

“He was willing to work for public institutions, but not for private establishments,” Naqvi said.

His nephew recalled an encounter during an exhibition in an Arab country when a visitor asked to buy a painting. Sadequain initially declined, then called the man back and gave him a drawing instead.

“The visitor was even more astonished,” Naqvi said. For his uncle, he recalled, that reaction was a reward in itself.

Sadequain died in Karachi in 1987. The papers his nephew preserves offer a record of how his work traveled and how he understood its purpose.

“Sadequain was not merely an artist. He was a social critic,” Naqvi said. “He believed in art for life. Every painting carried a message.”