Mansoor Rahi is the leading abstractionist painter of Pakistan and his teaching and influence have led to the emergence of a larger number of prominent artists than any other teacher artist. When he came to Karachi in 1963, soon after graduating from the Arts college at Dacca, he was still doing water colour painting in a light impressionist style. The landscapes were more carefree and the potraits more careful, because the latter demanded more correctness of detail but both had that easy spontaneity and casualness combined with sureness of hand which is the charm of the water colour medium.
From 1969, his style changed, though it was evolving in the same direction. The heavy thematic content, the philosophical ideas and the tragic feelins were greatly reduced though they did not quite vanish from his work because they were a part of his mental makeup. However, the emphasis now on emulating the stylistic achievements of the Cubists. it was earlier work of Picasso and barque, which is often called analytical Cubism, that attracted him first.
He drew and painted the figures with anatomical accuracy but the leading lines of each area were picked out and emphasised by being rendered geometrically and not realistically.