Renowned artist Arabinda Das Gupta no more

Reticent painter and art teacher Arabinda Das Gupta breathed his last at Sylhet Shahid Shamsuddin Ahmed Hospital this morning at 10:22 am today. He was 68 years old.

He was undergoing treatment at the hospital after testing positive for Covid-19 on July 24, said his fellow painter Ismail Gani Himon.

Arabinda Das Gupta, 68, preferred to stay away from the limelight and spent most of his painting career in his favourite town Sylhet.

He was born in Habiganj in 1953, and brought up in Sylhet. He completed his graduation from the Faculty of Fine Arts in Dhaka University (then called Bangladesh Institute of Arts and Crafts) in 1976.

Teaching children and painting in his studio, was the life he had chosen. He was graced by legendary painters Zainul Abedin, Qamrul Hasan, and SM Sultan. They all taught him to lead a simple life with paintings, according to an interview he gave to The Daily Star.

Arabinda's paintings are on the subject of idylls of villages, seasonal diversity, romance, natural calamities, Liberation War etc.

His first exhibition was arranged in 1980, followed by two more exhibitions in 2002 and 2016. His fourth solo exhibition, 'Plabone Shwapan Buni' (Sowing dreams in cataclysm), was organized virtually last year.