Today marks the 104th birth anniversary of Shilpacharya Zainul Abedin (1914-1976), the leading figure in the history of modern art movement in Bangladesh. A well-known figure for his leadership qualities in organising artists and art movements, Abedin took the initiative to found the Government Institute of Arts and Crafts (now Faculty of Fine Arts) in 1948 on Dhaka University campus, of which he was the founding principal. This institute trained and nurtured an entire generation of artists whose works reflected the changing times. Qamrul Hassan, Safiuddin Ahmed, Shafiqul Amin, Anwarul Haq were contemporaries of Zainul Abedin. This was the generation that depicted the changing social reality in their art.
Marking the birth anniversary of Zainul Abedin, Faculty of Fine Arts has organised a five-day long expo of art and crafts. The festival will end today with a prize giving ceremony for the best works. The prize giving ceremony would start at 9.30am today at Bakultala of the faculty in Shahbagh in the capital. Every year this festival titled "Zainul Utshob" is held on the premises of Faculty of Fine Arts, University of Dhaka. The festival starts on December 29, the day Zainul Abedin was born. But this year due to general election the starting date has been pushed ahead and the ending day marks the birth anniversary of the Shilpacharya. This year's festival also celebrates the 70th founding anniversary of Faculty of Fine Arts. This is being held after 20 years, the last one being held on the 50th founding anniversary of the faculty.
It is noteworthy that the first batch initiated of the Government College of Arts and Crafts in 1948 with the students of Aminul Islam, Hamidur Rahman, Abdur Rahman Bhuiyan, Abdul Kader, Mohammad Ismail, Alfazuddin Khandakar, Nurul Islam, Khaled Chowdhury, Shamsul Alam, Imdad Hossain, Julfikar Ali, Probash Sen, Loknath Dhor, Bazle Moula and Ali Humayun.
During the 1950s, Dhaka was a quiet and green city. Painters frequently visited Buriganga river, Waiz Ghat and other attractive places to portray nature with the guidance of their teachers. Zainul Abedin especially stressed on drawing and he successfully instilled in them an interest in this genre of art. The students also portrayed political chaos, economic crises, city life, rural life, still life and other themes. Some of them were greatly influenced by internationally acclaimed impressionist painters.
Born in Mymensingh, Abedin grew up in the serene landscape by the river Brahmaputra - the river being a source of inspiration to the artist from an early childhood. In 1933, the artist enrolled at Calcutta Government Art School. Later he joined the faculty of the same institute after his graduation. He was an influential member of the Calcutta Group of progressive artists.
"Famine Sketches", a series of paintings Abedin made in 1943, addressed the dearth of food created by the British Raj. Bengal was affected the most by the famine. That series earned Abedin international acclaim. Drawn in Chinese ink and brush on cheap packing paper, the series is a compilation of haunting images of intolerable cruelty and the utter helplessness of the masses dying of hunger.
The sketches brought the artist all-India fame, but more than that they assisted him find his rhythm in a realistic mode that fore grounded human pain, anguish, struggle and remonstration. The "Rebel Crow" marks a high point of that style. This meticulous brand of realism that united social inquiry and protest with higher aesthetics was to prove useful to him in diverse moments of history such as 1969 and 1971 when Zainul executed a few of his ground-breaking works.
Abedin paintings throughout the fifties and sixties reflected his preference for realism, his aesthetic discipline and his fondness for folk forms. But after a couple of years, the iconic figure went back to nature, to rural life, and the daily struggles of man. Needless to say, he is well-known for his landscapes, which mainly delve into scenic and panoramic beauty of rural Bengal. The works were mainly watercolours.
In 1975, Zainul Abedin set up a folk museum at Sonargaon, and a permanent gallery in Mymensingh (Shilpacharya Zainul Abedin Sangrahashala) to display some of his works. He became actively involved in a movement to preserve the cultural heritage of Bengal. Abedin died in 1976 in Dhaka.
