Safiuddin Ahmed is a renowned Bangladeshi artist, noted for his oil paintings and pioneering work in printmaking. The artist played an important role in the foundation of the Institute of Fine Arts under Dhaka University.
Why has eighty-six-year-old Safiuddin Ahmed used his third solo exhibition ~ perhaps the last he will see with his own eyes ~ to focus solely on his drawings? While it may seem strange that the acclaimed Bangladeshi artist has left aside his body of work in oil and graphics, ‘The Limitless Luminosity of Lines’ enthralls precisely because it jettisons colour, drawing the viewer into an essentialist world of tone, contour and edge.
Housed in twin exhibition rooms (The Jamini Roy Gallery and Nanadalal Bose Gallery) Ahmed’s charcoal, mixed-media, ink and pencil drawings speak to each-other across the gallery space. The shared medium leads us to compare the light, suggestive pencil lines of the Nude Drawings, with surrealist masterpieces such as ‘Remembering Ekushey’ (1 and 2), where hands, cities, fingers and eyes hang suspended in the void of the canvas. Abstract works such as the ‘Black Series’ lean towards bold, stark cubism, while the several figurative sketches on display of clothes merchants, peanut sellers and street fiddlers, invite us to enjoy the artist’s attentive and empathetic eye.
Safiuddin Ahmed’s latest exhibition is remarkable for its maturity of vision and sensitivity of craft ~ the product of 70 years engaged in his vocation. The fact that one of the drawings displayed was finished only last year gives the viewer pause for thought. Art lovers in the city will be thankful that Ahmed has chosen Kolkata, his birthplace, to host this historically important exhibition.
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