Osian's Auction Catalogue India The Passionate Detachment | February 2001

52 THE PASSIONATE DETACHMENT 10 SHILPACHARYA ZAINUL ABEDIN (1914 - 76) National Art Treasure of Bangladesh Kal Baishakhi Series (Dry storm) Initials in English, t.r. Dry brush & Chinese Ink, late 1940s. 27.9 x 21.5 cm. (10.98 x 8.46”) Rs. 150,000 - 200,000 $ 3,190 - 4,255 “He painted rural scenes with peasants and boatmen, mostly in the tradition of new realism that, while depicting the reality of the human scene, also imposed a certain nostalgia. The pictorial images became soft and iridescent, but retained their sharp message…By the beginning of the 40s, however, changing social situation began demanding a harsher treatment of reality. The 1943 famine, entirely man made, and mercilessly brutal, forced Zainul to come to terms with reality in his own way. He drew a series of sketches that, in a minimum of details and in bold brush strokes, brought out the unmitigated suffering of the people and the bestiality of human greed. This series of sketches earned him all-India fame, but he also drew other similarly moving pictures. For, Zainul was a versatile artist who valued his role as a painter and a chronicler of his time. His romanticism, his vision of an idyllic Bengal with contented village folk and supple bodied women never detracted him from the stark reality of living.” (Syed Manzoorul Islam, in From Bengal School to Bangladesh Art, rpt. in Contemporary Art in Bangladesh 1999 , pp15-16). There is an unfinished pencil drawing on verso. For colour illustration of watercolour painting on the same theme, titled Norwester (1951), refer to Contemporary Art in Bangladesh. Special Volume AIW No.34 1999 , p7. Also refer to The Arts of Bangladesh - 1990 ExC. , p34.