A retrospective of noted artist Murtaza Basheer’s journey as an artist is on display at the Gallery Kaya in Uttara.
The exhibition, titled ‘A Collection of Drawings, Collages and Oil Pastels (1954-2014),’ showcases 46 chosen paintings created during his long career spanning six decades (from 1954 to 2014).
The paintings show his artistic skills and craftsmanship over different types of media, including drawing pen, oil pastel and collage on board. The early artworks of Basheer are mainly pen drawings of human face. Such a drawing is titled ‘Florence’ (1957) which depicts the facial profile of a woman.
A colour pencil drawing on paper is called ‘A Boy from Rampura,’ created in 1956, portraying a young boy. It was done with simple strokes of a red-coloured pen.
Basheer’s later works, created between 80s and 90s, are mainly collages where he had pasted paper cuttings of colourful images on boards to create full-length pictures.
One such artwork is ‘Dream,’ depicting a sleeping girl and some beautiful white Pegasuses. The elegant one-roomed houses in the picture, together with the sleeping girl, create a perfect dream-like situation.
The artist’s antiwar attitude is evident in a collage titled ‘No More War 1,’ which he created in 1991. Papercut pictures of a helpless old woman and children, a long queue of coffins, a barren land, all in the milieu of a sky blackened with dense cloud, show the consequences of a war that brings nothing but sadness and destruction.
‘Women’ is the dominant theme of Basheer’s most recent art pieces. He has also shifted from collages on board to oil pastels on canvas in the meantime. Paintings of this stage are eye-catching, with vibrant colours, depicting portraits of different women.
Inaugurated by M. Sayeduzzaman, a former public servant, on September 12, the exhibition will remain open for the general public until September 25.
