A Pakistani artist’s lifetime spent creating medallion portraits of Saudi leaders

Pakistani artist Khalil Najmi holds a portrait of King Salman at his residence in Karachi on Tuesday. (AN photo)

• Khalil Najmi, a medallion portrait artist from Karachi, has created several images of Saudi leaders

KARACHI: Khalil Najmi was glued to the screen of his black and white television set when new channels broadcast King Faisal bin Abdulaziz’s attendance at the Islamic Summit in Pakistan in February 1974.
Mesmerized by the charismatic Saudi leader, Najmi, then a teenager, sketched the king’s portrait and started to learn more about the Kingdom and its royal family. His interest continued, leading to new work on medallion portraits of Saudi leaders.
“My father was in the Merchant Navy and brought me a portrait of King Faisal,” Najmi told Arab News. “I was deeply moved by the inscription under the image that labeled him as the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques.”
Najmi had an artistic flare since childhood and would engrave images on chalks and erasers during his school days. But King Faisal’s appearance during the summit held in Pakistan’s Lahore was a “turning point” in his life, he said, as it made him realize he wanted to create portraits of high-profile leaders.
The decision to focus on medallion portraits came from a meeting with a blind man in Karachi who told the artist he had wanted to see what Pakistan’s founder Mohammed Ali Jinnah looked like.
“I put his hands on my medallion portrait of Jinnah and he gently ran his fingers on it as if he was trying to create the image in his mind,” Najmi said. “After a while, this man started crying uncontrollably and repeatedly thanked me for helping him feel what Jinnah must have looked like.”
The nature of his job required years of dedication, concentration and hard work.
“I began my work on the current set of portraits in 2016 and completed nine of them, which include three sets in three different mediums,” he said. “In 2016, I completed the portraits of King Salman and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.”
Najmi’s work also includes portraits of UAE leaders Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al-Nahyan, Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid, and Sultan Qaboos of Oman.
“One of my hand-carved portraits of Bahrain’s King Hamad bin Isa Al-Khalifa was acquired by the office of Pakistani Army Gen. Qamar Javed Bajwa and was presented to the Middle Eastern leader in January this year,” he said.
But his ultimate dream is to present the portraits of Saudi leaders to the Kingdom’s crown prince, Najmi said.
“I hope he can graciously grant me the honor to personally present them to him as a souvenir,” Najmi said. “I have produced these portraits with great love for the Saudi royal family.”