By Zahid Riffat
LAHORE: National College of Arts (NCA), Lahore, has progressed significantly since its establishment in 1875 as Mayo School of Arts. The premier art education institution in Pakistan is currently celebrating its 150 years through NCA Triennale 2025, which began last month.
Several functions and programs have been organized and continue to be held to mark this major historical milestone.
The 150th-anniversary celebrations have featured a series of exhibitions, symposia, and performances beginning in October 2025. Alongside the art-related activities of the NCA Triennale 2025, other events have been or are scheduled to take place. These include the Breast Cancer Awareness Walk, Spring Festival, seminars, and additional festivals planned through the end of the year. Other Triennale events included the Spring Carnival, Independence Day, and Maarka-e-Haq celebrations, NCA Jazz Night, Mushaira, and poetry sessions.
According to information from the NCA website and other sources, the Triennale welcomed applications from multiple creative disciplines, including visual artists, designers, architects, musicians, and film, TV, and theatre professionals. The event also brought together a distinguished assembly of international and local dignitaries, faculty, students, and researchers. Specific individuals, such as German artist and professor Beate Terfloth and resident British artist Louis Holman, were invited explicitly to participate in the Triennale activities and programs.
Questions arise when reviewing the information provided by the NCA website. How could a national institution, while organizing a large-scale event celebrating 150 years, leave invitations to participants themselves? The NCA management could have prepared lists of potential invitees from various fields and extended invitations for one, two, or all Triennale events. Yet, prospective participants had to apply and wait for approval before attending their desired events.
At the Triennale 2025 inauguration, the NCA management claimed that over 200 national and international artists from Europe, China, Iran, the United Kingdom (UK), and Palestine, among other guests, attended. However, it remains unclear whether these participants were invited by the NCA or applied under the outlined conditions.
The management extended direct invitations to artists from Germany and the United Kingdom (UK) but did not do so for several Pakistani artists, notably world-renowned Pakistani artist Jimmy Engineer. His inclusion could have added distinction and prestige to the celebrations.
Some attendees, including artists, noted they were not invited due to various reasons, raising questions about the NCA management’s selection process. Additionally, the so-called open calls for participation were not advertised broadly, limiting opportunities for prospective participants and potentially affecting the overall success of the events.
It is surprising that the NCA Principal, now the first Vice-Chancellor after the institution’s upgrade to university status, and many faculty members were not fully aware of Jimmy Engineer’s remarkable 50-year career. The internationally recognized artist, peace activist, and social advocate initially joined NCA after completing his education at St. Anthony High School but left in his final year, preferring a career in art over a formal degree.
Jimmy Engineer has held numerous exhibitions at NCA, the Educational Auditorium, and the Museum, as well as visiting other exhibitions frequently. His most recent exhibition at NCA’s Zahoorul Akhlaq Gallery was in May 2024, attended by the Vice-Chancellor and faculty members.
Despite these achievements, the Triennale 2025 events appear to have been poorly managed and organized by the NCA administration. The accomplishments of Jimmy Engineer, as an artist par excellence, remain unmatched by any living or deceased Pakistani artist. Evidence of his work can be accessed on his website, but the management seemingly ignored these achievements.
Jimmy Engineer turned professional in 1976. His paintings are housed in private collections across Australia, New Zealand, Japan, South Korea, Abu Dhabi, Bahrain, Italy, the United Kingdom, France, Switzerland, Sweden, Sri Lanka, Russia, Holland, Spain, Germany, United Arab Emirates, Jordan, India, Oman, China, Belarus, Kuwait, Qatar, Vietnam, Nepal, Malaysia, Norway, Ireland, Hungary, Philippines, Thailand, Indonesia, Singapore, Canada, USA, South Africa, Pakistan, and worldwide.
He has created over 3,000 paintings, around 1,000 abstracts, more than 1,000 calligraphies, and over 1,500 drawings. He has donated over seven lakh prints of his artwork to various charities globally, now in private collections across more than 60 countries.
Jimmy Engineer has conducted over 120 exhibitions nationally and internationally. He has led more than 200 charitable walks and organized over 260 awareness programs for handicapped and orphaned children.
Throughout his career, he has received more than 130 awards and medals, both nationally and internationally. These include the All Punjab Painting First Prize (1978), Ministry of Information and Broadcasting Islamabad Award (1981), National Award for Minorities (1983), International Rotary Youth Leadership Award (1986–87), National Endowment of the Arts Award USA (1988), Gold Medal from the International Rotary Club (1997), Human Rights Medal (2000), Sitara-e-Imtiaz by the Government of Pakistan (2005), Peace Ambassadors Medal by China World Peace Foundation (2016), Ambassador for Peace Award by Universal Peace Federation and Women Federation for Peace, Canada (2018), Jinnah Award (2018), Poet Habib Jalib Peace Award (2019), and Hilal-e-Imtiaz by the Pakistan Government (2025).
In fairness, no other Pakistani artist is known to have received such a large number of honors, awards, and medals, to the best knowledge of this writer.
About the Writer
The writer is a Lahore-based freelance journalist, columnist, and retired Deputy Controller (News), Radio Pakistan, Islamabad, and can be reached at zahidriffat@gmail.com.
