Amritsar’s Partition Museum adds Guru Nanak’s rare painting to online exhibition
CHANDIGARH: Partition Museum, Amritsar, has announced that it has included a pre-partition painting of Guru Nanak by renowned artist Sardari Lal Parasher in its on-going online art exhibition-cum-fundraiser, ‘Memories Unlocked: Partition, Migration, Identity’ organised to commemorate August 17, the Partition Remembrance Day.
The painting titled ‘Guru Nanak, Continuous Light’ has a miraculous history. It is closely linked to the turmoil that took place during the Partition, and was almost lost — along with many other works of the wellknown artist, SL Parasher, who was then the vice-principal of the Mayo College of Art in Lahore. Parasher had to leave Lahore overnight post-partition, and many of his pre-partition works were lost.
Fortunately, the painting was saved due to the friendship between him and another famous artist, Abdur Rahman
Chughtai. Chughtai managed to rescue this painting and some of Parasher’s other works from the chaos of Partition and sent them across the border.
The exhibition is the first-ever online art exhibition cum fundraiser organized by the Partition Museum with the support of Art Alive Gallery, New Delhi. It showcases 26 exclusive works by 16 eminent and upcoming artists of the country. August 17 was declared Partition Remembrance Day by the Punjab government in 2017, when the museum was completed and opened.
Mallika Ahluwalia, CEO and curator of the Partition Museum, and founder trustee of The Arts And Cultural Heritage Trust, said, “We are honoured and grateful to the Parasher family to include such a rare painting by SL Parasher in our ongoing exhibition. Work of this archival nature is not seen anymore as most of the early work by many of Punjab’s artists was either lost or scattered due to the Partition.”