LAHORE, Dec 11: Mark Writter Sponenburgh, founder principal of the National College of Arts, Lahore passed away peacefully in his home at Seal Rock, Oregon, USA on Dec 6. He was 95.

In 1958, Prof Sponenburgh was assigned the challenging responsibility of upgrading the Mayo School of Art, Lahore. He had re-designed the academic structure and revitalised the institution by making drastic changes.

Prof Sponenburgh had several exhibitions of sculpture and earned many fellowships and lectureships. In 1951, he was appointed fellow of the American Research Centre in Cairo. He served as dean of the arts at Oregon University, visiting professor at the Royal College of Arts, London and held many other academic and curatorial positions in many parts of the world.

NCA’s former principal Prof Salima Hashmi said Prof Sponenburgh was an eminent educationist and artist who had transformed the sleepy and dying institution into a dynamic one as the first principal.She said Prof Sponenburgh had developed a full lot of artists and architects and his thinking stamp could be seen in the works of Nayyar Ali Dada, Zahoorul Akhlaq, Mian Salahuddin, Asif Mirza and Bangladeshi architect Bashirul Haq.

Prof Sponenburgh, she said, had taken the first group to Swat and Sindh and documented wooden architecture. She said Swat’s collection was given to the Lahore Museum by the NCA. She said Prof Sponenburgh had organised the first major exhibition called “5,000 years of the horse and the rider.”

As a principal in 1995, Prof Hashmi said she had invited Prof Sponenburgh as a chief guest at the convocation. He had come to the college 38 years after his departure from Pakistan, she said.

NCA Art Gallery Director Ajaz Anwar said Prof Sponenburgh was brought to the college under Colombo Plan to modernise the NCA. “Prof Sponenburgh introduced art education on modern lines in Lahore, otherwise the artists might have continued living in the old age art for many years to come,” he said.

He said the first batch of artists produced by Prof Sponenburgh included Zahoorul Akhlaq, Nayyar Ali Dada, Mian Salahuddin, Tanvir Hussain and Muhammad Javed and they remained the best so far.