Ameena Ahmad Ahuja donates 33 paintings to Jamia Millia Islamia

New Delhi, May 16 (UNI) Internationally acclaimed artist Ameena Ahmad Ahuja has donated 33 paintings, all black and white calligraphies of ink on paper, to Jamia Millia Islamia University.

The paintings have been mounted for viewing at the Jamia Archives Gallery till May 23, a University spokesperson said.

The show has been dedicated to the memory of the artist's sister, Late Sameena Ahmad.

Dr Ameena Ahuja has taught Russian at the Jawaharlal Nehru University and lectured on poetry at Columbia University and worked as Artist in Residence at Harvard.

Her works have been exhibited widely in Moscow, Tokyo, Venezuela, Columbia, New York and India. Having studied art at London University's Slade School of Art, her work blends a uniquely oriental sensibility with a highly stylised western training.

Her exotic calligraphies of birds and animals reveal an amazing synthesis of Art and Poetry, especially the poetry of the great masters of Urdu poetry such as Ghalib and Iqbal, Sufi masters such as Attar and Rumi, and the great Persian poets such as Hafiz and Saadi.

She uses a range of calligraphic styles such as the Kojic, Nastaliq, Shikaste as well as Cyrillic. She draws on sources as diverse as the classical poetry of the East in Arabic, Persian, Urdu as well poems by the great Russian writers such as Pushkin, Tyutshev anna Akhmatova and Mayakovsky.

UNI