Zainul Abedin

Gift from the artist to Cedomil Plazek

Thence by descent

Cedomil Plazek was a hydrogeologist and representative of Geotehnika Yugoslavia for the United Nations. He lived in Dhaka, Bangladesh, and for many years worked on the United Nations’ groundwater resources development project. While in Bangladesh he befriended Zainul Abedin, who gifted him the current lot.

Zainul Abedin - known as Shilpacharya or Great Master of the Arts - was a pioneering Bangladeshi artist, foundational to the modern art movement in the country. Over the four decades of his artistic career, Abedin faithfully depicted the land, lives and plights of everyday people in his home. Born in 1914 in Kishoreganj, British India (now Bangladesh), he began his arts education at the Government School of Art in Calcutta from 1933 to 1938, where he also taught until 1947. In 1948, he founded the Government Institute of Arts and Crafts (now Institute of Fine Arts) in Dhaka and was its first Principal.

Abedin felt limited by the academic and oriental styles he was taught, and instead refocused on his own visual idiom and artistic preferences, favouring Bengal modernism over the neo-classicism of the Tagores or the folk revivalism of Jamini Roy. Early on, he developed a keen interest in social realism, depicting sociopolitical issues and aiming to critique the underlying power structures. An artist with an impassioned social conscience, Abedin continued to depict strife with profound care, portraying refugees in Syria and Jordan, and the destructive Bhola cyclone in East Pakistan in 1970.

In 1971, the year this work was painted, East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) fought West Pakistan (now Pakistan) for its independence. A devastating armed conflict ensued known as the Bangladesh Liberation War. Millions of people were displaced and countless lives lost over these eight months. Abedin was involved in the liberation movement, and continued to actively support and celebrate Bengali identity through his work.

‘A sensitive artist, Abedin never considered art to be anything outside the domain of ordinary life. To him, art was only an expression of life, and its purpose was to make society rich and beautiful... His art always served the common people, from whom he had come, by faithfully depicting their lives, their continuing and seemingly endless struggles, and their hopes and aspirations.’

(N. Islam et. al., Great Masters of Bangladesh: Zainul Abedin, Bengal Foundation, Dhaka, 2012, p. 47)