Zubeida Agha

Zubeida Agha (Faisalabad, 1922 – Islamabad, 1997) was among the first modern artists of Pakistan. After the country's creation in 1947 she became the first artist there to hold an exhibition of her paintings, and she played a key role in bringing the modern idiom to Pakistan.

Born in Punjab, she graduated from Kinnaird College for Women in Lahore and worked with the painter B. C. Sanyal from 1944 to 1946, when she also studied the works of Picasso closely. She was also influenced by Mario Perlingeri, an Italian prisoner of war in India. In 1946 the Society of Fine Arts gave her first prize for modern painting. She joined Saint Martin's School of Art in London in 1950 and then the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris in 1951. In 1961 she was appointed executive director of the Contemporary Art Gallery in Rawalpindi.

Her intensely coloured work initially baffled critics and viewers before winning them over. She used colour not only for its own sake but to lend truthfulness and depth to her images and to provoke reflection in the viewer. Today she is considered one of the great colourist painters of Pakistani art and is often called a torch-bearer of modern art in the country. Her work is permanently displayed at the National Art Gallery in Islamabad, and in 2024 it was shown for the first time at the Venice Biennale.