Quddus Mirza
Quddus Mirza is a Pakistani art critic, artist, and educator based in Lahore. Born in 1961, he studied at the National College of Arts in Lahore, graduating in 1986, and completed postgraduate work at the Royal College of Art in London in 1991.
As a critic, Mirza has written for major newspapers and art magazines in Pakistan and abroad. He is known for careful, thoughtful analysis, often spending at least ten minutes on a painting to absorb its nuances, and he interviews artists with tact and respect.
In 2019, Mirza became a professor and the head of the Fine Arts Department at the National College of Arts in Lahore. His own paintings focus on pictorial investigation and the multiplicity of meaning, using bright colors, gestural brushwork, and inlaid social and political content. He often plays with space and overlapping strokes to convey his ideas about the political and social scene.
Mirza has described creativity as a self-expression process, not aimed at pleasing an audience. He has written about the relationship between Eastern and Western art and rejects the term “Pakistani art,” preferring “art from Pakistan.” His writings also question art education and the roles of galleries and institutions in shaping Pakistani art, including how modern miniaturists adapted the tradition for Western tastes.
This page was last edited on 2 February 2026, at 18:02 (CET).