National College of Arts Lahore

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National College of Arts, Lahore


Established	1872
Type	Public
Staff	???
Undergraduates	???
Postgraduates	???
Location	Lahore , Pakistan
Campus	Urban
Website	www.nca.edu.pk

National College of Arts Lahore , usually referred to by its acronym NCA, is a famous old College in Lahore, Pakistan.

Like all old institutions, the National College of Arts, has a historical tradition. Much of its present tone was set long ago when it was known as the Mayo School of Arts. Gazetteers written about the city of Lahore in 1915 describe the work being done at the school as one of the cultural highlights of the urban center.

1 History
2 Artists associated with NCA
3 NCA in modern times
4 Famous personalities from NCA
5 Organization
6 See also
7 External links

[edit] History

The Mayo School of Industrial Art was set up to commemorate Lord Mayo, the British Viceroy to India. A teacher of painting and sculpture Lockwood Kipling, working then in Bombay in a Parsi School, was appointed its first Principal parallel to his charge of the Curator of the Lahore Museum. The Museum and the School were conceived together.

In 1958, the school was upgraded by the then West Pakistan Government into the National College of Arts. In 1963, the Government recognized the College as a premier arts institution in Pakistan, was taken away from the Department of Industries and placed under the Education Department with its own Board of Governors. The new policy in 1972 further recognized the achievements of the college and planned its development into a center of Excellence in the Visual Arts. A high-powered Board of Governors was constituted to ensure a measure of autonomy under the Federal Ministry of Education.

[edit] Artists associated with NCA

Lockwood Kipling’s preoccupation with indigenous art and his effort to save its tradition from becoming polluted with a cheap imitation of British Victorian fashions set the tone of the Mayo School and later, of the college itself. Two great Pakistani painters, Abdur Rahman Chughtai and Shakir Ali, both associated with the College, were a kind of culmination of this inspiration. Chughtai represented the revival and development of the Mughal traditional while Shakir Ali constituted a link between the Pakistani sensibility and the world of international art.

Haji Muhammad Sharif, once the miniature painter at the court of Maharaja of Patiala, gave a firm foundation to the teaching of the dying art of miniature. After him, Sheikh Shujaullah carried on the miniature tradition, leaving behind at his death his pupils like Bashir Ahmad who is today the prized representatives of the art.

The influence of Abdur Rahman Chughtai, a scion of me family of Behzad, took the Mughal art out of its narrow miniature framework and gave it the dignity of modern dimension. He effectively transplanted to canvases and to book illustration me lyricism of the Mughal and Pahari miniature.

If Chughtai was difficult to emulate because of his persistence in traditional subjects and highly stylized treatment, the modernism of Shakir Ali gave rise to a whole generation of Pakistani painters, most of them his pupils at the College and still employed as teachers there.

The College specializes in production a certain kind of artistic sensibility, which at once satisfies the creative demands of a work of art and the more pragmatic requirements of a profession. One of the leading architects of Pakistan, Nayyar Ali Dada, an old student and a member of the Board of Governors of the College combines the talents of an architect with facility of drawing.

This capacity of the College graduates to apply art to specific projects has allowed them to take on projects in various fields. They have helped design primary school buildings and produce new building material for construction. They prepared a visual study of the indigenous architecture of Pakistan for the Aga Khan Award for Architecture ceremonies, Lahore.

[edit] NCA in modern times

Due to its distribution as the only arts institution in Pakistan, entrance to it has become competitive. Around 450 students from all provinces study in the College (out of which nearly 40 percent are girls) and is taught by a teaching staff of 40. There is a high rate of employment for its diploma-holders in a number of important organizations in the country: Pakistan International Airlines, Pakistan National Council of the Arts, University Grants Commission, Security Printing Press of Pakistan, National Book Foundation, and the Department of Films and publications. Apart from the various urban development authorities, its graduates are absorbed in the private sector by a large number of advertising agencies, architectural consultancies, industrial and publishing houses.

Since 1963 when the present college was invested with a new arts structure, it has carried courses in three departments, Architecture, Fine Arts and Design. All these courses are professional and enable the graduate to relate his talent to the job market.

In 1985, through an ordinance the college has been granted the status of an autonomous degree awarding institution and now awards Bachelor Degrees in Fine Arts, Design and Architecture. The ordinance also empowers the institution to institute postgraduate programmes in the field of Visual Arts. Some of these programmes have taken off. An MA (Hons) in Visual Arts and M Phil leading to PhD in Communication and Cultural Studies were initiated in 1999. In the same year, a research and publication center was established at the college which has produced a number of books on history, art history and other disciplines of social sciences and humanities. A project for Restoration and Conservation of Archival Records of (previously known as) Mayo School of Arts, Lahore which later matured in the form of NCA Archives. Acknowledging the necessity of excelling in the field of Information Technology, the college initiated another post-graduate programme in Multimedia Arts in September 2001. The college is also offering Masters Degree in Interior Design.