WITTY, charming, elegant, vividly good-looking, a lively conversationalist, and a talented artist—these qualities sum up Mrs. Atiya Hasan, a young Pakistani artist whose exhibition of paintings opened this week at the Royal Commonwealth Society, in Northumberland Avenue, by the Countess of Kilmuir. 

To Atiya, an evening of painting after a day of managing a varied and activity-filled household is a tonic. It is a means of relaxation, a way of recharging, and often her inspiration. After just an evening’s painting she says, "I can emerge from one of my mood studies," a fact quite liable to pick up her brushes and portray some mood study. In fact, she is inclined towards the mumbo-jumbo of today’s art world, inspire her to paint, and one of her imagery pieces, a few of which she might have been tempted to sub-title her favorite music. She can be inspired by music—by the rhythmic vigor of Spanish flamenco, and the sombre notes of Wagner are a few of the music forms which inspire her to paint out her imagery on canvas.

Atiya’s responsive temperament allows her to swing from one mood, from one subject to another, with the alacrity of a squirrel. These traits are obviously responsible for the conviction of a lot of her imaginative works.

Most of her canvases are done from imagination. She has never been to Spain, yet her flamenco dancers are vividly realistic; she has never been to the Caribbean, yet her classical ballet pieces are there against a background; she has barely seen classical ballet, yet her ballet scenes have the remote reality of a Degas decor. On the other hand, she has, of course, seen cocktail parties in Karachi market scenes in all its "schools" do not restrict her—she draws on them all as she requires them, and as the mood moves her.

Appropriately, Atiya and her husband, Atta, and their two lovely children, ten-year-old Sabiha and Barkat aged seven, are temporary Chelsea residents. She is completely in love with Chelsea, with London, and with our much abused climate, which she finds conducive to work. At gathering of friends, she soon slips to her favorite position on the floor, where she sits, elegant and figure, gesturing dynamically, where she can talk intensely and rapidly on subjects ranging from Karachi party gossip to the political situation in the Middle East. To get to terms with Atiya one must do it at floor-level, where she talks, surrounded by modern recordings, a selection of books, and cushions which happen to be around.

The Hasans’ Pakistan home is Sui, a remote gasfield in the desert of North-West Pakistan, where her husband is an administrative staff of the Burmah Oil Company. Although it is four hundred miles from Karachi and remote from any cultural centre, Atiya finds that she never has a moment to spare. When she is not painting, she is running a house, which she manages with a flair. In trim, slim-sustained jeans, and busy at her domestic chores, Atiya loves cats, "they are so beautiful and proud"—even, apparently, her wild cat which they had tamed. In Pakistan, the family had a pet buck, a gazelle named Bukki, or rather to use its not-so-original name of Daggunt, which they tamed completely. It is on record how Daggunt fared with the wild cats...

On an average, Atiya manages to spend three months in Karachi, from her desert outpost, when she plunges into the social whirl of cocktail parties, diplomatic receptions and dinner parties with her friends, mostly drawn from the Greek, Italian, French, Persian, and Turkish communities. Not so long ago she held a successful exhibition of her paintings in Karachi, which resulted in her being commissioned to paint murals of Pakistani history for the Pakistan International Airlines city offices...

Karachi, which resulted in her being commissioned to paint murals of Pakistani history for the Pakistan International Airlines city offices in London, now she is exhibiting in London. So reverently does she think of London as a centre of the arts that she has moments of terror at what she calls her audacity in showing in London. But her friends, fellow-artists, and others who have seen her work have no qualms on her behalf, and chide her for her modesty.

Atiya’s European friends are invariably envious of her beautiful saris which are the answer to every woman’s dream of elegance, and to every traveler’s packing nightmare. She is selective about her saris, an auxiliary sari length as the occasion demands, and her wardrobe is complete for all emergencies. We are assured that Pakistani women are as fashion-conscious as Europeans, and sari fashions have their ups and downs as do our more complicated garments. We read of variations in borders, in gold-and-silver trappings, in H-lines, and so on, but from their patterns, the hems, and the various blouse-tops. And as we are slaves to Paris and Rome, so Pakistani women watch the fashion trends in Bombay and Delhi.

Atiya is too much of an individualist to be a slave to fashion, and she designs most of her own blouses and chooses her own saris. But sewing is one of her "big hates," though she qualifies this by adding, "Mind you, I would do more if I had a good sewing machine."

With a sudden look of horror at her husband, who blindly regards the ceiling, in the manner of all husbands at such moments. Food, on the other hand, she loves, especially Turkish food, which, she says, she would eat for the rest of her life if she had the chance, without missing other European or Indian dishes.

After the exhibition is over and some family affairs settled, Atiya and Atta hope to make their first visit to the Continent. Ask her where she particularly wants to go and Atiya, the artist, will look faintly surprised and reply, "Why, to France and Italy, of course!"