Qayyum Chowdhury

Qayyum Chowdhury
Born	(1932-03-09)9 March 1932 Feni, Bangladesh
Died	Dhaka, Bangladesh
Nationality	Bangladeshi
Known for	Painting, Book Design and Illustration
Awards	Independence Day Awards (2010–2019), Ekushey Padak Awards (1980–1989)

Qayyum Chowdhury (March 9, 1932 – November 30, 2014) was a Bangladeshi painter. After the pioneering artists like Zainul Abedin, Quamrul Hassan and Safiuddin Ahmed his name is the most popular among the first generation artists of Bangladesh. He is perhaps most well known for his cover designs - but his significance as a painter is vast..

Although Kazi Abdul Kasem and Zainul Abedin led the way for applied art in Bangladesh, Quamrul Hassan helped this field to flourish and it was Qyyum Chowdhury's unswerving creative efforts that bought maturity to this art. During the last fifty years, he has adorned this field with abundance and diversity.His world of painting on the other hand, resonates with the ebullient nature and life in Bangladesh.A passion for literature, music and film made his quests of life optimistic, variety seeking and an abundant source of good taste.

Biography

Qayyum Chowdhury was born on March 9, 1932 in an educated and aristocratic family of Feni, Noakhali. As his father, being a cooperative-bank official,was transferred from one place to another, Qayyum Chowdhury's boyhood was spent in various districts and makhakuma towns -in Chittagong,Comilla, Narail, Sanwdeep, Noakhali, Feni, Faridpur and Mymensingh. Because of his close affinity with the fascinatingly diverse nature of Bangladesh, a deep passion grew in his mind for nature. Particularly, his life in Narail on the Chitra river played a significant role in his study of nature. His interests, inherited from his father, in reading newspapers and books, and his love for music from childhood, contributed and developing his aesthetic sense and cultured mentality- which gave birth to his love for art. During his fourth and fifth grade in school, he had a keen attraction for the detective book series of Kanchanjangha published by Deb Shahitya Kutir.He says, 'The writing was definitely good, but the cover and the illustrations of those books were excellent. An artist named Pratulchandra Bandapadhyay used to draw those books pictures. There used to be a green pattern on the cover of those books, which was also impressive'. Apart from Pratulchandra, his contemporary artists Fani Gupta,s pictures and Samar Dey's illustrations inspired the development of Qayyum Chowdhury's artistic being. The magazines that were bought to their house (Bangashree, Prabasi, Bharabarsha, Basumati etc.) because of his father's interest, used to contain Abanindranath and Gaganendranath's illustrations, which fuelled his passion for art. That is how he decided to study in art school when he was in ninth of tenth grade. Later, after passing Matriculation (1949) from Maymensing City Collegiate School, when he took the initiative to study in Dhaka Art Institute, he found a supportive attitude in his music-loving father.

Qayyum Chowdhury was student of the second batch of Dhaka Government Art Institute (established in 1948). His teachers Zainul Abedin, Quamrul Hassan, Saifuddin Ahmed and others hand a huge influence on him. Besides, his association with a group of talented classmates went a long way in flourishing the artist in him.Rasid Choudhury and Abdur Razzaque were prominent among them. He was also a close friend of Aminul Islam, a first batch student. At this time, his intimacy also grew with poets, authors and musicians. Among them, Shamsur Rahman, Syed Shamsul Haque, Hasan Hafizur Rahman, zahir Raihan, Syed Atikullah, Borhanuddin Khan Jahangir, Alauddin Al Azad, Samar Das are worth mentioning. After coming to Dhaka, passion for movies was added to his passion for books and music. The combined chemistry of all these factors made his study period in the Art institute (1949–54) into a significant preparatory stage of his becoming an artist.

Profession

Chowdhury joined Dhaka Government Art Institute as a teacher in 1957 and worked until 1960. Then he joined Design Center as a designer for a year. He took the position of the chief artist Observer group of publications. On 20 October 1965, he moved back to Dhaka Government Art Institute (renamed Government Art College of Dhaka) as a lecturer in the Commercial Art Department. He was promoted to the position of assistant professor in 1970, to associate professor in 1986 and finally to professor in 1991. He retired from the organization in 1994. But he kept teaching in the Institute until 2002 (first by extension of his service and later as a supernumerary teacher).

Exhibitions

Through his first solo exhibition took place 23 years after finishing his studies from the Institute (1977), he always participated in all major group and national exhibitions. He participated in all the 'All Pakistan Art Exhibition' (beginning in 1954), in each 'National Art Exhibition'(beginning in 1975) in Bangladesh and all the Asian Biennials (beginning in 1981) held in Dhaka. Major foreign exhibitions where he participated are: Exhibition of Nine Artists of East Pakistan in Washington(1957),5th Teheran Biennale(1966), Art Exhibition of the 3rd International Trade Fair in Delhi(1972), third and fourth Triennales in Delhi(1975 and 1978)in Graphic Print Exhibition in East Germany(1977), São Paulo International Biennnale(1979), first Asian Graphic Designing Exhibition in Teheran(1979), Contemporary Asian Painting Festival in Fukuoka(1983),Contemporary Art Exhibition of Bangladesh held in India, Japan, Beijing, Harare and Moscow(1973,1988,1989,1990 and 1994 respectively)etc.

His second solo Exhibition was held just after his first exhibition in 1977 in Washington.

His third solo Exhibition took place 22 years after that, in Dhaka's Shilpanagan(1999), and

His fourth so Exhibition was in Bengal Art Gellary(2004).

He created a mosaic mural (900 x 510 cm),based on the Liberation War, in the Bangladesh Bank Building in Rajshahi in the year 1988.

Artistic consciousness

As a worthy predecessor of Zainul Abedin and Qamrul Hassan. Qayyum Chowdhury also possesses patriotism, puts in endless efforts in hiszown work to express the beauty and essence of the country and is committed to the folk tradition.

The new trend of good taste and beauty that he has introduced in cover design and illustration has also influenced his art world, of one may say that the influence is mutual and his efforts in applied art and his creative artworks complement each other. In all type of works by Qayyum Chowdhury, the presence of rural Bangladesh is distressed during different calamities of the country, he seeks relief in the images of pastoral life of Baangladesh. Tural life engenders fa kind of passion in his inner self that inspires his creative being to paint the images of that life. This feeling is the source of his patriotism. That is why his paintings on the Liberation War are also in rural settings. Zainul Abedin's deep passion for folk heritage inspired Qayyum Chowdhury's interest in folk art, Nandalal Bose's Haripura Posters, Jamini Roy and Quamrul Hassan's paintings were one can locate our heritage. He creatively portrayed the fascinating motifs, colors and language of folk art in his works. He followed traditional manuscript paintings, Kalighat paintings, sakher handi, nakshi katha, pakha (hand fan) etc. and the techniques of their creation. At the same time, he brought some modern elements to folk art by analyzing and minimizing its forms and using primary and mixed colors simultaneously and tried to use it in a modern context. He was also deeply attracted towards the drawings of Kalighat painting for its minimization and lyrical properties.

Qayyum Chowdhury's painting do not portray harshness of crudeness; intense sufferings of human life, violence, murder,anguish etc. His paintings are always charming. The beauty of structural formation is the main element of this charm. Not being affect by the mo9mentary is a feature of his paintings.

He is always comfortable in creating representational art. Though he was once attracted to abstract art, it never stimulated his creative being. The kind of crisis and degeneration that occurred in the values of life in the west after the Second World War gave rise to this stream of art; and the artist is conscious about the fact that Bangladesh did not have this context - which prevented him from continuing with this trend.

His favorite color is red. He also has special weakness for ultramarine blue, cadmium yellow and viridian green. One can notice the dominance of these colors in all his paintings. Th attraction of pata (traditional scroll) painters of primary colors influenced him. Nevertheless, he is no less interested in creating tones of new colors combining primary colors, In this, the Impressionists of the west have influenced him. He consciously follows the radical attitude of the Impressionists in the use of colors. It may be mentioned here that, after Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo, his favorite artists are Van Gohg, Paul Gauguin and Pablo Picasso.

There are some noticeable turning points in Qayyum Chowdhury's life. The 1950s and 1960s can be marked as his preparatory period. Some of his noteworthy painting of this era are My Sister (Oil painting, 1954), Pawnbroker(oil painting, 1956), Boat in Moonlight (watercolor, 1956),Self portrait (oil painting, 1959) etc. In a hostile state environment, he tried to express himself in versatile ways through these paintings and was absorbed in experimentation in different themes, media and isms. This episode of his life as an artist is distinguished by his attraction towards folk culture and heritage, prominence of nature, rivers and boats as subjects and in hints of Impressionism, Cubism and Abstract Expressionism. Later the Liberation War of 1971 made a significant impact deep within his begin. In 1972, he got the opportunity to truly express himself and conveyed his hatred for the enemies who had humiliated his motherland, and his frief, suffering and love through his paintings. However the dreamlike optimistic period of the country did not last for long; and in another crisis (1976–77), the artist became absorbed in his childhood nostalgia. In this phase, he produced ten oil paintings, ltled Childhood Memories, where he aspired to overcome the torments of contemporary life by taking refuge in memories of village communities. Because of this nostalgia, the village landscape is somewhat transformed into abstraction. He has kept expanses of open space on the pictorial surface of these paintings - which is a quality of the paintings. The artist's first and second solo exhibition (1977) were held with these paintings created over the course of three decades.

Then a long trip to Europe and America (1977) enriched his store of experience, enhanced his confidence and made his love for his own tradition and country more intense. Thence he produced the series of paintings titled My village and Village Underwater. From the beginning of the 1990s, the prominence of figures in his paintings is notable. Therefore, in his third solo exhibition (1999), the suggestion of figures was present in the settings of rural life, and colors were given prominence over lines. This exhibition is especially unique by the use of vibrant and primary colors. These features are unchanged in his fourth and last solo exhibition (2004). In the painting titled Abohoman of this exhibition, the diversity of life in the eternal image of Bengal is portrayed alongside the ugliness of contemporary life. However, the artist desires to take his works beyond the contemporary to a state of timeless appeal. This passion turns him into a devotee. He immerses himself in the occean of forms in search of formless treasure.

Awards

Whithin a few years after passing from the Art Institute, he received the national award for his contribution to art (1961–62). In the same year, he received the first prize in the All Pakistan Art Exhibition held in Lahore for his painting titled Bottom. Four years later, he received the award of the Royal Court inn Teheran Biennale (1966). Shilpakala Academy Award (1977), Ekushey Award (1986),6th Bangabandhu Award (1994), Leipzig Book Fair Prize for Book Illustration (1983), Gold medal for contribution in book design, National Book Center, Dhaka (1975), 1st Prize, Best Book Cover Design, National Book Center (1988, 1982, 1981, 1979, 1978, 1975, 1970, 1966, 1964 and 1963), 1st Prize Railway Time-Table Cover Design (1995 & 1960)

Death

On November 30, 2014 Qayyum Chowdhury fell sick while delivering his speech on the fourth-day of Bengal Foundation organized classical music festival in Bangladesh Army Stadium. He was rushed to CMH, where on-duty doctor declared him dead. He was 82 years old.