Jamil Naqsh was a British Pakistani artist, a modern expressionist and a traditional miniaturist, whose work revolved heavily around the significance of birds. His work melded the modern and the traditional in a fluid and refined way, drawing lines of significant movement while defining reality or distorting it, with much of his work heavily influenced by the masters, Paul Klee and Pablo Picasso. Naqsh also painted Islamic calligraphy in his modern style with unique and bold brush strokes. His calligraphic style maintained the basic elements of art, with special emphasis on 'line'.

 Truly a starving artist, much of his early life was spent homeless and in poverty as he was abandoned after Partition and spent his teenage years on the streets. He then received a scholarship and an early art education, from 1953 to 1954 at the Mayo School of Arts Lahore, now known as the National College of Arts (NCA) under the tutelage of the maestro miniature painter Ustad Shariff.

 A considerable amount of his work is currently shown at the Jamil Naqsh Museum in Karachi, Pakistan, which was founded by his family in 1996. His work is highly admired, widely appreciated and venerated in Pakistan as he was often referred to as Pakistan’s best contemporary artist and was awarded the Sitara-i-Imtiaz (Star of Excellence) in 2009.