Anna Molka Ahmed

Anna Molka Ahmed was a Pakistani artist and poet who lived in Lahore, Pakistan. Her work has been exhibited in art museums and galleries in Pakistan and the United States, as well as Britain, Japan, Jordan, and Switzerland. Her paintings are part of the permanent collections at the Tate, the British Museum, the Metropolitan Museum, the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi, and others. She was also an accomplished writer, having written hundreds of rubaiyat in the style of Omar Khayyam and Sarmad Kashani. She was part of a broader Islamic art movement that emerged independently across North Africa and parts of Asia in the 1950s and known as the Hurufiyya movement. She rejected Western art concepts, and instead searched for a new visual language that reflected her own culture and heritage. She transformed calligraphy into a modern aesthetic, which was both contemporary and indigenous. She painted classical literature from the poetic verses of Ghalib, Iqbal, and Faiz. She received the Tamgha-e-Imtiaz (Medal of Excellence) in 1963 and the Pride of Performance Award in 1969 by the President of Pakistan. She was born Molly Bridger to Jewish parents, in London, England on 13 August 1917. Her mother was Polish and father was Russian. She converted to Islam at the age of 18 in 1935, before marrying Sheikh Ahmed in October 1939, who was then studying in London. She studied painting, sculpture and design at St. Martin School of Arts in London, and received a scholarship to the Royal Academy of Art. She moved to Lahore in 1940 and, besides painting, taught fine art at the University of the Punjab. She divorced her husband in 1951, but remained in Pakistan with her two daughters until her death on 20 April 1994. She was 76 years old.