J. Iqbal Geoffrey-Pakistani abstract painter whose work fused ancient Eastern and modern Western traditions. Born in Chiniot, Pakistan (then India), he began drawing at an early age and in 1955 began painting in oils and working in calligraphic tachiste abstract styles, often introducing Hindu symbolism. He founded and edited a journal, The Pen Post, which ran 1955-1959, and published a book of verse in Urdu in 1957. He completed a BA degree at Government College, Lahore, in 1957, and a law degree at the University of the Punjab in 1959. He was called to the Bar of Pakistan at the age of 20, then went to London in 1960, where he decided to become a professional painter. His first retrospective exhibition was featured at the Alfred Brod Galleries, London, in 1962. He was awarded a Huntington Hartford Foundation fellowship in 1962, and moved to New York. He became inactive as a painter in 1965 as a gesture of protest against the contemporary art world, but continued to devise a series of iconoclastic conceptual projects. He was a visiting professor at St Mary's College, Notre Dame, Indiana, 1967-1968, and divided his time between the USA and Lahore. He also taught at Central Washington State College.
From the guide to the Central Washington University Faculty Papers, J. Iqbal Geoffrey, circa 1960s-1970s, (Central Washington University Archives and Special Collections)
