Ahmed Parvez was born in Rawalpindi, in what was then known as British India (now Pakistan), in 1926. He began pursuing art as a career in 1952, and immigrated to London, England in 1955, where he initially struggled to establish his artistic career. Founding the Pakistan Group of painters, he was also appointed honorary secretary of the Council of Commonwealth Artists in 1955, eventually becoming a noted colourist, participating in many UK exhibitions, before returning to Pakistan in 1964.
Painter Ahmed Parvez was born on 7 July 1926 in Rawalpindi, in what was known as British India until the partition of India and Pakistan in 1947. As a child he moved to Srinagar, Jammu and Kashmir, and studied at St Joseph’s College, Baramulla, before continuing his education at Gordon College, Rawalpindi. In 1952, Parvez decided to pursue an artistic career, moving to Lahore where his uncle had a studio. That same year, he was awarded the highest prize at the annual art exhibition at Punjab University in Lahore, organised by Professor of Fine Arts, Anna Molka Ahmed, for a work of pastel on printed newspaper. He became part of the Lahore Group of painters, who exhibited together numerous times. He also held five solo exhibitions in Pakistan between 1953 and 1955, and exhibited at the São Paulo Art Biennial in Brazil in 1955. Encouragement from Molka Ahmed and artist and art teacher Shakir Ali for members of the Lahore Group to travel and expand their artistic horizons led to many leaving for Europe. Parvez decided to further his career in England and moved to London in 1955, accepting a job in the offices of the Pakistan High Commission.
In London, Parvez faced years of frustration as he tried to establish his career as an artist, but he eventually showed his work at numerous exhibitions and attracted critical attention as a modernist abstract painter. He established the Pakistan Group of painters, who exhibited together for a time, including at the Woodstock Gallery, London, in November 1958. He was also appointed honorary secretary of the Council of Commonwealth Artists in 1955. Parvez's first solo show in England was held at the New Vision Centre Gallery in London in 1959. This was followed by exhibitions at London's Lincoln Gallery, Clement Stephens Gallery, Commonwealth Institute Art Gallery and the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, as well as his participation in numerous group shows. His work featured in the Treasures of the Commonwealth Exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts in 1965, and the Commonwealth Festival Exhibition in Nottingham in 1966.
Considered primarily a colourist, Parvez became known for working on small canvases in watercolour and gouache, densely filling the space. S. Amjad Ali has described his work as 'prismatically colourful' and 'marked by bursting nervous energy that expressed itself in vigorous drawing made up of short strokes and sharp turns and twists of the line' (Painters of Pakistan, p. 135). Victor Musgrave, director of Gallery One, which showed south Asian artists, is said to have stated that Parvez was ‘without question, the outstanding artist from Pakistan who has made a very strong impact upon the English art world’ (The Other Story, p. 36). Parvez, however, struggled with his health, alcohol misuse, and growing debts. In the 1960s, he worked at the Pakistani Embassy in London in an attempt to make ends meet, but eventually left London, and his wife and children, moving to Karachi, Pakistan, where he opened a studio in 1964. From 1966-69, Parvez lived in New York, where he held a solo exhibition at the Gallery International in 1968, before returning again to Karachi, where he continued to paint and exhibit extensively. In 1978, he was awarded the President's Pride of Performance Award by the Government of Pakistan.
Ahmed Parvez died in Karachi, Pakistan on 5 October 1979. His friend and student Wahab Jaffer compiled scrapbooks of material on him, which later formed the basis for a book on his life and work by Marjorie Husain. Posthumously, Parvez's work was featured in the important survey exhibition The Other Story: Afro-Asian Artists in Post-War Britain, held at the Hayward Gallery, London, in 1989, and in Speech Acts: Reflection-Imagination-Repetition at Manchester Art Gallery in 2018-19. In 2021 his work was included in South Asian Modern Art at London's Grosvenor Gallery. In the UK public domain his painting Waiting for the Cloud is held in the collection of Manchester Art Gallery.
Consult items in the Ben Uri archive related to [Ahmed Parvez]
Publications related to [Ahmed Parvez] in the Ben Uri Library