Ismail Gulgee – The Gulgeez (25 October 1926 – 16 December 2007) Pride of Performance, Sitara-e-Imtiaz (twice), Hilal-e-Imtiaz, was an award-winning, globally famous Pakistani artist born in Peshawar. He was a qualified engineer in the US and self-taught abstract painter and portrait painter. Before 1959, as portraitist, he painted the entire Afghan Royal Family.