The School of Daedalus trained the first sculptors and painters in ancient Greek mythology. Daedalus himself—a skillful artist, craftsman, archit
The School of Daedalus trained the first sculptors and painters in ancient Greek mythology. Daedalus himself—a skillful artist, craftsman, architect, and inventor—symbolized wisdom, knowledge, and power. He was known for creating the Labyrinth for King Minos, inventing carpentry for ship masts, and crafting wings of feathers and wax for his son, Icarus.
Legend has it that despite Daedalus’ advice not to soar too high, Icarus flew so close to the sun that its heat melted the wax holding the feathers together. Icarus, who had never been his father’s student, helplessly flapped his arms before plunging into the sea and drowning to a fateful end. Perhaps this was the most significant realization for times to come: the power of ingenuity, creativity, and the courage to explore the relationship between human ambition, creativity, and the natural world must flourish within an academic discipline. Every civilization, society, and nation needs safe spaces to harness brazen creative adventurism through wisdom, academic rigor, and mentoring to discover the possibilities of art. As man entered into the industrial age at the turn of the 18th century, the world witnessed the emergence of a new kind of arts and craft movement in conjunction with the rapid social and economic change. As machines ground at a deafening momentum, art had to resist loss of identity, originality, imagination, expression and traditional craftsmanship. In the subcontinent, Sir J.J. School of Arts, Bombay; Government College of Art, Madras; Government College of Art and Craft, Calcutta; and the Mayo School of Arts, Lahore, were the four art institutions established by the Crown to respond to this tension. Established in 1875, on the lines of the Kensington model, in conjunction with the Central Museum Lahore, the Mayo School of Arts was set up in memory of the assassinated British Viceroy of India, Lord Mayo, who served in the region from 1869 until his assassination in 1872. John Lockwood Kipling, father of author Rudyard Kipling, a teacher of painting, sculpture, and architectural embellishment and proponent of the arts and crafts movement working then at the J.J. School of Art Bombay, was appointed as the first principal of the Mayo School of Arts and also held charge as the curator of the Central Museum Lahore.
What started as a center to document the arts and crafts of the Punjab and train craftsmen who could serve the wheels of imperialism, over time developed into a center of craft excellence, attracting students from across North India. Meticulously curating the embellishment crafts, woodwork, woodcarving, weaving, embroidery, blacksmithy, metalwork, and bookbinding, the center gained a reputation as the hub of craft finery. A line of accomplished principals succeeded Kipling such as Sir Percy Brown, a renowned British scholar, artist, art critic, historian and archaeologist; the architect of the iconic Lahore Museum building Bhai Ram Singh; Lionel Heath, a well-regarded European Miniaturist who established the Department of Photolithography at the School in 1915; and Sumarendra Nath Gupta, an artist from the first batch of students of the legendary Abanindranath Tagore. Over the years, the inclusion of fine art became part of the school’s curriculum, along with architectural drafting and drawing. As the society adjusted to post-partition realities, the Mayo School of Arts also went through a process of restructuring. It was in 1952, under Ghulam Nabi Malik’s tenure as the principal, that a co-educational class of male and female students was introduced on the pretext that the school could not provide an extra model because of a lack of funds. Before this, a’ few female students were relegated to the basement of the building. Now, the Mayo School of Arts was rechristened as the National College of Arts.
Professor Mark Ritter Sponenburg, a graduate of the prestigious Cranbrook Academy of Art, Michigan, and the L’ École des Beaux Arts Paris, served as the Principal from 1958 to 1961. A celebrated artist, well-versed in American and European art and design education, he introduced a modernized curriculum that to date serves as the National College of Arts’ foundational basis. Professor Sponenburg established the departments of Fine Arts, Design and Architecture in 1958.
Now under the purview of the Ministry of Education, the College was sanctioned a Board of Governors as recognition of its superior quality of education. The modern movement in Pakistani art had already begun with Professor Shakir Ali taking charge as the Principal of the National College of Arts in 1961. Credited for pioneering Pakistan’s contemporary art, he was a constant source of inspiration for the young and promising artists. Well-travelled and well-versed with old as well as the new art movements, his work was modern yet not built on a borrowed sensibility. These are the same grounds on which he aligned the culture of this institution that he headed for well over 12 years.
In 1985 the College was granted a degree-awarding status while Prof. Abbasi Abidi was the principal. Prof. Abidi had a specialization in textile design and was instrumental in facing difficult times during the Zia regime but protecting the academic freedom of the National College of Arts and also protecting the campus from violent politics. With a rich legacy of producing innumerable giants who shaped the identity of Pakistani art, National College of Arts can take credit for creating the nation’s largest body of alumni—artists, designers, and architects who lead the creative landscape in the country.
Once a degree awarding status was secured, National College of Arts went on to institute graduate programmes in the fields of Visual Arts and Interior Design, Multimedia Arts, and Communication and Cultural Studies. Today, the College offers MA degrees in Visual Art, Interior Design and Multimedia Design and an MPhil leading to PhD in Communication and Cultural Studies. The departments of Musicology, Film & Television along with the Center for Conservation and Cultural Heritage Management were added later. A Research and Publication Center was established in 1999, and has produced milestone publications on history, art, and the social sciences. National College of Arts Archives is considered an essential resource for research on history of art, craft, design and architecture of Pakistan and pre-partition Punjab.
Besides the iconic Lahore Campus of National College of Arts, located in the heart of Pakistan’s cultural capital, in 2005, the College’s Board of Governors proposed the formation of a second campus in Rawalpindi. The National College of Arts, Rawalpindi Campus, operates from a multi-storey building flanked by the historic Liaquat Memorial Hall, which has hosted various performing arts for over fifty years. A camp office in the adjoining city of Islamabad serves foundation-year students, who then move to their respective departments at the Rawalpindi Campus. The establishment of the Gilgit Campus is a recent initiative of the National College of Arts and will soon be operational, mitigating the financial strain on the prospective students from the Gilgit-Baltistan region who earlier had to relocate to Lahore or Rawalpindi to pursue their studies in relevant disciplines and creative quests.
While Daedalus could give Icarus wings, what he failed to give his son was the discipline to understand the course of his flight. The National College of Art can take credit for establishing the first and foremost model of a safe space where tradition, innate creativity, and academic rigor all find a perfect balance. Diversities, histories, theoretical positions, and technical procedures located within a critical space where no particular ideology or theoretical position remains sacrosanct make the National College of Art that unique space where young minds can safely exercise their freedom to fly and explore the endless universe of creativity
