“The Cry” by Safiuddin Ahmed is a reference to the horrors of the Liberation War. It memorializes the mass killings unleashed by the Pakistan army and the fight the Bengalis waged to gain freedom, which eventually led to the final victory on December 16, 1971. Being a witness to the killings during the war as well as the unfolding political upheavals in the post-liberation era, Safiuddin translated his memory into visual epic using the eye as his primary motif. This copper engraving is his response to the injustice and oppression that he saw around him. The image unveils the souls living in constant terror and depicts their helplessness and grief through the symbolic eyes shedding silent tears. The sharp lines and their rhythmic arrangement that make up the image recall at once the nightmare people endured and the resilience they showed. This 1980 print captures the desperate situation with obleaque references to the psychological battle and everyday struggle of the common man.

In his early years in Kolkata, Safiuddin Ahmed earned fame for his exquisitely done wood engravings. This is one of those rare masterpieces done in 1947 where the signs of his excellence made visible the lives of the Santals who eked out a living amid the pristine natural setting. Wood engravings always call for an additional attention to light and shade. It is through carefully constructed details that this scene of almost cinematic complexity is given life in this work. The image shows a group of Santals returning to their village and it captures the languid figures accompanied by animals in movement, crossing an area canopied by trees. As the setting sun creates elongated shadows, the scene unfolds like a dream-image. Safiuddin and his compatriots used to go on visits to Dumka, the Santal district of West Bengal, to study nature and experience the life the indigenous inhabitants lived in proximity with nature. This image stands as a testimony to a people whose eco-centric lifestyle remains under constant threat of extinction following modernity’s incursion into the furthest corners of the Earth.