Osian's Auction Catalogue Forty Masterpieces | March 2003

“In his drawings, Abedin was godlike. His lines responded to his emotions, the lines were direct, the clarity of his strokes had speed. The thrust of reality was tremendous…The criteria of his emotion was simplicity. Zainul Abedin preached simplicity instead of a lifetime of variety, a single- mindedness of perception. He sought to mediate the different layers of consciousness through the image of a spontaneous and simple person. The simple person was a peasant, a boatman, or fishermen or simply a villager.” (Burhanuddin Khan Jahangir, in The Quest of Zainul Abedin. Dhaka: ICBS Series 1993; pp16-7.) “Abedin’s various works depicts the cry and lament of villagers: a traditional expression of rural people, which embraces death, disaster, despair and reality in the daily lives of the people…The crying and lamentation has created an aesthetic of pain…What is it that works in the aesthetics of pain? It indicates death not only of a recent past, but of death long ago, stored in memory. The experience of pain is the locus of aesthetics, a deep sharp emotion which exposes itself in a specific structured manner and becomes in Abedin’s hand, famine or Manpura, a harvest scroll. Abedin grew up in a tradition where pain found aesthetic expression; in punthi literature, kathakathas and morsias at Muharram …Abedin in different ways translated this cry of pain to us…but there is no connection with religion, our cry goes beyond the structure of the Janaza. In this way Abedin articulates to us the sharpness of pain. After Bishad Shindhu , one can say that Abedin is our poet of lament.” (Burhanuddin Khan Jahangir, ibid , pp61-2.) Portrait Signed in English, l.c. Charcoal on newspaper, 1968-9 22.0 x 20.4 cm [8.7 x 8.0 in] Provenance Private Collection, Kolkata Rs. 250,000 – 325,000 $ 5,200 – 6,800 £ 3,100 – 4,100 _ 4,800 – 6,300 80 81 27 SHILPACHARYA ZAINUL ABEDIN [1914-76/ b.Kishoreganj, Mymensingh, present-day Bangladesh] National Art Treasure of Bangladesh Os.Mum/ 05.12.2002 Lot 8 SAILOZ MOOKHERJEA Untitled Charcoal on paper, late 1940s 44.5 x 41.0 cm ASP: Rs. 198,000 Os.Mum/ 05.12.2002 Lot 10 Portrait of a Girl Oil on canvas, mid 1930s 44.0 x 39.0 cm ASP: Rs. 550,000