Today is the 110th anniversary of birth of Shilpacharya Zainul Abedin.
Born in Kishoreganj on December 29, 1914, Zainul Abedin, best known for his sketches of the Bengal famine of 1943, developed a passion for fine arts in his early teens.
He enrolled at Kolkata Government Art School in 1932 and completed his graduation with distinction.
He pioneered the establishment of Dhaka Art Institute and became its principal in 1949.
The institute, later made the fine arts faculty of Dhaka University, was the hub of fine arts practices in the then East Pakistan and remains so to this day.
He also played a key role in establishing the fine arts department at Peshawar University in the then West Pakistan.
Zainul Abedin blended the traditional ways and styles of fine arts and the western ones. He always patronised traditional crafts and paintings at every festival the institute held.
He collected a large number of traditional crafts, ceramic works, nakshi kanthas and preserved them.
In 1959, Zainul was conferred the Hilal-e-Imtiaz, the second highest government accord, by the then Pakistan government.
He took early retirement of his own accord from the Dhaka Art Institute in 1967 and was conferred the honorary title of Shilpacharya, great master of fine arts, by the institute.
In 1970, the master artist painted a 65-feet narrative scroll titled Nabanna, depicting the rural Bengal, and another 29-feet scroll titled Manpura, portraying the effect of the 1970 cyclone that devastated the coastal areas of the country.
In 1971, Zainul formed the Charu O Karu Shilpi Sangram Parishad and also repudiated the Hilal-e-Imtiaz.
In 1973, Zainul received an honorary Doctor of Letters degree from the Delhi University. He was made a national professor in 1975.
He founded the Folk Art Museum at Sonargaon in Narayanganj and the Zainul Abedin Sangrahashala, a gallery of his own works, in Mymensingh in 1975.
The versatile artist passed away on May 28, 1976.