Ajaz Anwar
Ajaz Anwar
Born	1946 (age 79–80) Ludhiana, Punjab Province, British India
Known for	Painting
Website	ajazart.com

Ajaz Anwar (Urdu: اعجاز انور; born 1946) is a Pakistani painter. He was a gold medalist at Punjab University, and he completed his M.A. in Fine Arts from Punjab University. Later, he went to teach at National College of Arts Lahore. His watercolour paintings show the grandeur of the old buildings and the cultural life in Lahore.

Born in Ludhiana in 1946, his father was a cartoonist who apparently had stirred his passion from childhood and from whom he drew his inspiration. After obtaining his M.A. in Fine Arts and a Gold medal in 1967 from Punjab University (PUCAD) Lahore, he completed his Ph.D. in Muslim architecture, in Turkey in 1978 and proceeded to do a course on conservation of cultural property at UNESCO, Rome, in 1977. From 1972 he has been lecturing until he became professor and director of Art Gallery NCA, Lahore to date.

The old buildings of Lahore are the main theme of his paintings. Anwar has tried to preserve those buildings in his paintings which are crumbling or replaced by new style buildings. Not all the buildings are historical; many common homes of common people are the centre of his attention.

Although buildings are the main theme of his paintings, Anwar also paints people; characters he used in his paintings are quintessential of daily life in Lahore or Punjab. The characters are faceless, but they represent the common people found in the bazaars: A Tonga rider, women walking in the bazaar, children playing, milkman, old people talking, and sellers of all kinds. With close observation, there is detailed life in his paintings. A woman is peeping from the window or behind the curtain, a cock is searching for food bits in the garbage.

Kites are almost always present in Anwar’s paintings. His main themes are common homes or buildings and on the roof of every building there is a kite lover and on the sky above there are a lot of kites colouring the sky.

"In my paintings, I highlight the parts of Lahore that must be preserved. I remove skyscrapers and instead incorporate tongas and sweetmeat shops," he said in an interview. The main focus of his paintings are not human figures. "The human figures are only used to bring these crumbling buildings to life. People are not important aspects of my art because they are born and reborn whereas these buildings, once destroyed, will be lost forever."

Anwar was the recipient of the President's "Pride of Performance in Painting" in 1997.

Anwar has had exhibitions in Lahore, Ankara, Rawalpindi, Istanbul, Rome, Kampala, Chandigarh, Delhi, and London.

Anwar leads the Lahore Conservation Society and preserves Lahore's heritage as his personal crusade. "This is not in good taste, and it does not resemble the original shape of these shops at all," said Ajaz Anwar to BBC.

• Aijaz Anwar documents cultural legacy of Lahore, Daily Times (Pakistan)
• Theft of Ajaz Anwar's Painting