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Safiuddin Ahmed

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Occupation
  
Artist

Name
  
Safiuddin Ahmed

Role
  
Artist


Safiuddin Ahmed httpsuploadwikimediaorgwikipediaenthumb4

Born
  
23 June 1922 (
1922-06-23
)
Kolkata, British India

Awards
  
Independence Day Award (1996)Ekushey Padak (1978)

Died
  
May 20, 2012, Dhaka, Bangladesh

Safiuddin ahmed eminent painter printmaker


Safiuddin Ahmed (23 June 1922 – 20 May 2012) was a Bangladeshi artist.

Contents

Safiuddin Ahmed Safiuddin Ahmed International Center For Arts

Safiuddin ahmed eminent painter printmaker


Family

Safiuddin Ahmed Safiuddin Ahmed A Purist Artist DhakaCourier

Ahmed was born on June 23, 1922, in Bhabanipur, Kolkata. His father, Matinuddin Ahmed, was a sub-registrar in the land office of the Government of Bengal and his mother, Bibi Jamila Khatun, was a housewife.His family was a liberal and aristocratic Muslim family. Three generations of his family had lived in their paternal homestead in Bhabanipur. Ahmad's paternal grandfather, Aminuddin Ahmed, was a popular doctor in Bhabanipur. Aminuddin Ahmed was known as "Bachu Daktar" by the local residents. The road in front of his house was named "Bachu Daktar Lane" after Aminuddin Ahmed's death under the initiative of the "Kolkata municipality". Ahmed's father died when he was young. Bhabanipur was adjacent to shahebpara chaurangi. although people from different provinces lived in this area,majority of the inhabitants were culturally conscious bengali hindus and muslims. Baliganj of south Kolkata was then in the suburbs,populated sparsely.Bhabanipur was the most aristocratic area of south kolkata. The first twenty -four years of safiuddin`s life was spent in this milieu devoted to the pursuit of education and cultural activity prevalentin bhabanipur. As a result,safiuddin was encouraged by his immediate environment to participate in activities related to music,art,literature and the student movement.He grew up under the care of his paternal uncles and his mother.

Education

Safiuddin Ahmed Safiuddin Ahmeds 93rd birth anniversary observed The Daily Star

In 1936 he was admitted to the Calcutta Government Art School, a rarity for Muslim children. At that time, education in art school was generally viewed as vocational education in Bengali society. Safiuddin came into proximity with many people while studying in the art school from 1930 to 1942.As he practiced painting nature studies and landscapes and went to draw people with the students to the bank of the Ganges,the zoo and the Sealdah station ,likewise he want to studio in the home of the teacher prohlad, which always had its door open to visitors ,was also frequented by Dilip dasgupta,Zainul abedin and others.This means ,safiuddin was one of those who spent most of the hours of the day practicing art,through studies outside the school and in prohlad`s studio.other then this ,as students they regularly went to the Radha area at the western border of Bengal to Birbhum and the adjacent dumka area at the adjacent dumka area of Jharkhand.the everyday life of the santals of that area ,the dry landscape,vegetation,slowly flowing rivers,sky,horizons of Radha have repeatedly appeared as subjects pf paintings and prints done during his student life.the second world war started in Europe in 1939.From the early forties there began in kolkata a widespread mass movement against war,famine and imperialist oppression.AT that time it was not possible for any conscientious student and individual to remain neutral and uninvolved .safiuddin ahmed also involved this. In 1958 he completed the diploma courses in printmaking from the Central School of Arts and Crafts in London with distinction.

Career

Safiuddin Ahmed Safiuddin Ahmed International Center For Arts

Ahmed was the pioneer of printmaking in Bangladesh. He, along with Zainul Abedin and others, played an important role in the foundation of the Dhaka Art College (now the Institute of Fine Arts of Dhaka University.).

Safiuddin Ahmed Depart MagazineList Your Ad

He was employed in Prahlad Karmarkar’s studio. In one early painting there, he departed from pure narration to add his own perception and variation in the etching. Ramendranath chakravorty as a teacher of printmaking as a creative art form.inspired by them safiuddin learned the techniques of printmaking along with painting.even in the mid-twentieth century printmaking was not considered a mainstream medium in this subcontinent.even now in the goverenment art college of kolkata at the bahelor`s degree level printmaking is taught as a subject painting .the print making medium was not at that time among the mainstream media like painting and sculpture and one of safiuddin`s greatest achievements is that he helped raise this discipline of apparently secondary importance by adopting it as the main medium for his creative works and assisted it to reach a status equal to that of painting and sculpture.while living in kolkata ,the life of indigenous santals,give him inspiration to draw various picture.But after coming to east Pakistan the look ,posture and the environment of his picture changed."Empty basket" ,lemonade stand(pl.8.15)painted in oil colors in 1952 are quite perceptibly pictures of east bengal.The two painting :Fishing" and "carpenter"done between 1954-56 deserve special mention two reasons.In these two painting in oil colors we notice that he has tried to experiment with shapes more than in his landscape which are composed with the combination of light and shade.The color of these two paintings are strongly flat,the edges or contours of the forms subjective exaggeration has been resorted to rather than attempting to remain faithful to pictorially reconstruct the visual world in his own way.As a result,from this period his picture gradually start to move towards abstraction.In 1958 he completed the diploma course in printmaking from the central school of arts and crafts of London with distinction from 1956-1974.He visited different galleries of England ,France,Italy,Germany,Belgium,Netherlands,Switzerland,Soviet union and India.

Safiuddin Ahmed Safiuddin Ahmed International Center For Arts

Ahmed helped raise the profile of a printmaking, a discipline often considered of secondary importance, by adopting it as his main medium. He inspired many other artists from the subcontinent to begin printmaking.

Though Ahmed had been born and brought up in the city, he selected the landscape and life of the people in particularly remote areas of Radha Vangaand Jharkhand as the setting of his works. At the beginning of the `30s,Abanindranath painted the "Arabian nights series.This series is the last one in his fine aesthetic romance style.In 1939 in the background of the second world war he took his brush in hand .his fine.soft style was transformed.He started to draw the pictures of the "Krishnamangal" series where painted the killing of seventeen asuras or demons by the child krishna.

In the oil paintings Sunlit Hut, Dumka-1, Dumka-2 and Dumka ShalForest done in 1946, he applied the pigment in strokes like the Impressionists; and did not create sfumato by mixing paints.

Reference:

1.:Art and Crafts|:Asiatic Society of Bangladesh. 2007 2.:Safiuddin Ahmed: Great Masters of Bangladesh:| Rosa Maria Falvo]] 3.:Safiuddin Ahmed: A Purist Artist « |DhakaCourier]] 4.:SAFIUDDIN AHMED A legend of prints | The Daily Star]]

Death

He died at Square Hospital in Dhaka on May 20, 2012.

References

Safiuddin Ahmed Wikipedia