Shilpacharya Zainul Abedin Gallery gets new lease of life

The Shilpacharya Zainul Abedin Gallery at the Bangladesh National Museum (BNM), has got a new lease of life, thanks to the initiative of BNM and financial support of IFIC Bank Limited. Drik has provided technical assistance to the makeover.

The newly-decorated gallery along with its display of paintings by the master artist has some definite positives, but some glaring issues also stick out. The interior, background, framing of the works, lighting and digital display (through video monitor) of more than 100 paintings is awesome. The curator has put Shilpacharya's biography (both in Bangla and English) with his portraits including a rare one placed beside a wall painting of crow on the eastern side. They have also displayed art materials like spatula, brush and pen made of khog and colour tubes of Zainul Abedin. 

But among the 47 displayed artworks, the display of the priceless painting “Monpura 70” is a complete blunder, according to Nisar Hossain, Dean of Faculty of Fine Art, University of Dhaka. “Zainul Abedin portrayed the famous scroll painting sitting by the shore of the Bay of Bengal where tens of thousands of corpses were floating due to the devastating cyclone of 1970. It has a distinct flat horizontal visual of the black and white painting. But the curators have displayed in a curved surface. It has been hung above the eye level with little space and the circular symmetric rows (in both top and bottom side) of screws are disturbing. Such a display will definitely harm the painting,” said Nisar Hossain. 

Some other unflattering issues could also be seen around the gallery; there were signs of a possible retouching on the famous painting “Ghor-e Phera”. Its title in Bangla is written as Canvas-e Tel Rong (oil on canvas), but in English it says Watercolour on Canvas.  What also exasperated many visiting artists and viewers is the sand-like textures of the glasses on the painting frames. It has distorted the real visual aesthetics of the artworks. 

Prior to the opening of the gallery, an inaugural ceremony was held at Poet Sufia Kamal auditorium where finance minister AMA Muhith was chief guest while Asaduzzaman Noor, cultural affairs minister, was present as guest of honour. Asaduzzaman Noor elaborated the current state of the museum, various timely initiatives of his ministry and most importantly he spoke on the lack of professionalism in running the specialised departments of the ministry. The cultural affairs minister deserves great thanks for proposing to found a separate National Art Gallery (after the name of Shilpacharya) that will proudly showcase the masterpieces of Bangladeshi artists. The finance minister instantly conferred to the proposal and consented to allocate budgets for the project. “We are augmenting budget for the ministry of cultural affairs. Art and culture help us build good tastes and it is very necessary,” said Muhith.

Eminent Tagore exponent Rezwana Chowdhury Bannya and Shah Alam Sarwar, managing director of IFIC Bank, attended the event as special guests. Faizul Latif Chowdhury, DG, BNM delivered welcome address while eminent artist Hashem Khan presided over the programme. Artist-actor Afzal Hossain hosted the event.