Laila Shezada

1926-1994


Laila Shahzada was born at Little Hampton, England in 1926. She studied with the Royal Drawing Society, London in 1945-46. Her first solo exhibition was held at the Arts Council, Karachi in 1960. In her quest for a style novel and modern, she pursued the subject of driftwood, which she painted in writhing and torturous forms. Then her attention was drawn to the ruins and relics of the Indus Valley Civilization. She produced a series of paintings in which she brought to life various aspects of this long lost civilization using its surviving artifacts. An exhibition of these paintings was held at Karachi in 1976. Laila was honored in Pakistan by the President’s Award, the Tamgha-e-Imtiaz in 1986 and that same year participated in a group show at the Shorouks International Gallery, Regent Street, London. In the 1980s she was selected to participate in an international display at the Westminster Gallery, London and in 1989 her work was shown in an exhibition at the Barbican Gallery. Laila has painted some sixty or seventy historical paintings and that is a very substantial contribution to this genre. She died in 1994.