Sonargaon University

01925267457Bangladesh

Zainul Abedin

Nur MohammadSemester : 1/3ID : 1402002015Date: 28.12.14

Zainul Abedin

Born: December 29, 1914,Kishoreganj, East Bengal, British Raj (now Bangladesh)

Died: May 28, 1976 (aged 61)

Nationality: Bangladeshi

Field: Painting

Zainul Abedin an artist of exceptional talent and international repute. He played a pioneering role in the modern art movement in Bangladesh that began, by all accounts, with the setting up of the Government Institute of Arts and Crafts (now Institute of Fine Arts) in 1948 in Dhaka of which he was the founding principal. He was well known for his leadership qualities in organizing artists and art activities in a place that had practically no recent history of institutional or professional art. It was through the efforts of Zainul Abedin and a few of his colleagues that a tradition of MODERN ART took shape in Bangladesh just within a decade. For his artistic and visionary qualities the title of Shilpacharya has been bestowed on him.

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Born in Mymensingh in 1914, Zainul grew up amidst a placid surrounding dominated by the river Brahmaputra. The river and the open nature inspired him from his early life. He got himself admitted in Calcutta Government Art School in 1933 and learnt for five years the British/European academic style that the school diligently followed. In1938, he joined the faculty of the Art School, and continued to paint in his laid-back, romantic style. A series of watercolors that Zainul did as his tribute to the river Brahmaputra earned him the Governor's Gold Medal in an all-India exhibition in1938. It was a recognition that brought him into the limelight, and gave him the confidence to forge a style of his own.

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Zainul Abedin was born in Kishoreganj, East Bengal on December 29, 1914. Much of his childhood was spent near the scenic banks of the Brahmaputra river. Brahmaputra would later appear in many of his paintings and be a source of inspiration all throughout his career. Many of his works framed Brahmaputra and a series of watercolors that Zainul did as his tribute to the Brahmaputra river earned him the Governor's Gold Medal in an all-India exhibition in 1938.This was the first time when he came under spotlight and this awardgave Abedin the confidence to create his own visual style. In 1933, Abedin was admitted to Calcutta Government Art School in Calcutta. Here for five years he learned British/ European academic style and later he joined the faculty of the same school after his graduation

Early life and education

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He was dissatisfied with the oriental's style and the limitations of European academic style and this led him towards realism. He was the pioneer of the modern art movement that took place in Bangladesh. In 1948 he, and with the help of few of his colleagues, founded an art institute in Dhaka. That time there were no art institute present in Dhaka and he was the founding principal of that institute After completing his two years of training from an art school in London, he began a new style, "Bengali style", where folk forms with their geometric shapes, sometimes semi-abstract representation, the use of primary colors were the main features. But in all his drawing one thing was prominent that his lack of idea in perspective. Later he realized the limitations of folk art, so he went back to the nature, rural life and the daily struggles of man to combination of art that would be realistic but modern in appearance.

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Among all the contemporary works of Zainul Abedin, his famine sketches of 1940s are his most remarkable works. He created his famine painting set, which, when exhibited in 1944, brought him even more critical acclaim. The miserable situation of the starving people during the great famine of Bengal in 1943 touched his sensitive heart very deeply. He made his own ink by burning charcoal and using it on cheap ordinary packing paper, he depicted those starving people who were dying by the road side in search of little bit of food.

Famine paintings

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What Zainul did was not just documented the famine, but in his sketches the famine showed its sinister face through the skeletal figures of people fated to die of starvation in a man-made difficulty. Zainul depicted this inhuman story with very human emotions. This drawings became iconic images of human suffering. This sketches helped him find his way in a realistic approach that focused the human suffering, struggle and protest. The Rebel crow marks a high point of that style. This particular brand of realism combines social inquiry and the protest with higher aesthetics.

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Abedin was involved in the Bangladesh liberation war movement. He was in the forefront of the cultural movement to re-establish the Bengali identity, marginalized by the Pakistan government. In 1969, Abedin painted a scroll using Chinese ink, watercolor and wax named Nobanno. This was to celebrate the ongoing non-cooperation movement.

Liberation movement

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There are currently 53 oil paintings in the archive. The collection includes various themes and subjects, though most depict scenes of rural Bengal. Besides the original paintings, there are 16 replicas, and 75 photographs on Zainul's life and works. There are also 69 mementos on display such as brushes, brush holder, bottles of turpentine and linseed oil, carbon box, charcoal, wax, color palette, color tube, easel, ink pot, leather portrait holder, metal clip, reed pen, scraper, spatula, and his spectacles. The mementos are situated in glass boxes in the midst of the gallery.

Collection

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Famous Painting

Famine1943, sketch

by Zainul Abedin

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In 1943, he drew a series of sketches on the man-made famine that had spread throughout Bengal, killing hundreds of thousands of people. Done in Chinese ink and brush on cheap packing paper, the series, known, as Famine Sketches were haunting images of cruelty and depravity of the merchants of death, and the utter helplessness of the victims.

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Sangram (Struggle),oil paint by Zainul Abedin, 1976

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Thus the powerful figure of men and women struggling against man-made and natural calamities are a reminder of that essential idea of modernism: realizing the limits of the individual. Zainul’s works centralize men and women who labor and struggle against odds, and realize their potentials.Sangram (Struggle), oil paint by Zainul Abedin, 1976

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Abedin’s straight vision helped him to get that orthodoxy, this power also let him survive against the barriers. He deals wit simple people ,small people. His settings are fixed in village or sub town. His social political economical intellectual analysis is the understanding of mass people- which we call real analysis, an analysis grown from the grass root level of society, a bold but practical analysis and vision. Vanity fair, pompousness left off the art of Abedin. This is what makes him a legend – Zainul Abedin

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