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Tribute to Bijan Choudhury

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Sheikh Arif Bulbon :

Bijan Choudhury was regarded as a well-known art personality in both Bangladesh and West Bengal who passed away on 16 March this year in Kolkata.
A politically aware painter, his works are visual narratives. His strong mastery over lines never deteriorated into illustration. Most of his paintings are considered to be surrealistic and symbolic.
Bijan’s artworks were exhibited extensively in India, Bangladesh, Germany, Sweden and other countries. He won many awards, which included the award from the Academy of Fine Arts in 1963 and the Rabindra Bharati Award in 1978.
Strong and vigorous human figures have dominated the realistic compositional settings of artist Bijan Choudhury who is regarded as one of the most versatile and dynamic painters of the Bengal art arena of the recent period.
To pay tribute to this legendary artist Bengal Gallery of Fine Arts organised a two-week long exhibition titled “Tribute to Bijan Choudhury” - featured the works of this distinguished member of the contemporary art movement as well as a one of the students of the first batch of then Dhaka Art College.
The exhibition, comprising of 33 paintings, was inaugurated by eminent educationist Prof Anisuzzaman as the chief guest, while veteran artists Qayyum Chowdhury and Debabrata Chakrabarty of Kolkata were also present as special guests on the occasion.
Bijan Choudhury was born in Faridpur in 1931. He studied at the Government College of Arts, Kolkata. Later, he graduated from the Dhaka Art College (now the Faculty of Fine Arts, University of Dhaka).
In the 1950’s, Bijan was deeply involved with left leaning politics along with some of his peers - Qayyum Chowdhury, Devdas Chakraborty and Murtaja Baseer. Later, he migrated to Kolkata but maintained close relationship with Bangladeshi artists. He participated in many workshops and art camps in Dhaka.
The socio-political ideology of late Bijan Choudhury was sound and in-depth which could strongly be observed among his skillful artworks of creative thinking. Possessing equal passion in music, the artist took training in the musical instrument of sitar and this specific interest of his could be witnessed in the series of artworks titled Raagamala.
Mesmerising female beauty and physical glamour have been some of the key elements in artist Bijan’s inspirational creations together with presence of male characters studded with valour and muscular strength.
Animal and bird figures those of cats, horses, owls, falcons and domesticated pets like pigeons and pea-fowls are also abundant among the illustrations to add some variety, style and fullness to the entire compositional ornamentations.
Wars and battles, bloodshed, royal ordeals alongside intimate courtship and emotional appeals of romantic couples have been presented in stylish manners packed with glory, fame and          richness of the            historic past. n