Personal Profile About Ismail Gulgee
Ismail Gulgee was a renowned Pakistani painter and sculptor. He began his career in the 1950s as a portrait painter. He painted the Afghan royal family and several global figures. From the 1960s, he shifted to abstract art and became a pioneer in merging calligraphy with action painting.
The Ismail Gulgee biography states that he was born on October 25, 1926, in the Karimpura area of Peshawar, Pakistan. He studied civil engineering but was a self-taught artist. He died on December 16, 2007, at the age of 81, in Karachi, Pakistan.
His work was exhibited internationally. His paintings are held in major collections, including The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and Faisal Mosque in Islamabad. He received the Pride of Performance, the Sitara-e-Imtiaz twice, and the Hilal-e-Imtiaz. His son transformed his Karachi home and studio into the Gulgee Museum.