Qayyum Chowdhury

Qayyum Chowdhury, a Bangladeshi painter, was born on 9 March 1932 in Feni. He is considered as a first-generation artist of Bangladesh. He graduated from the Government Art Institute, Dhaka, in 1954. He joined Dhaka Art College as a lecturer in 1957. He then took a job at the newly established Design Centre to work under Quamrul Hassan. Within a year he joined the then ‘Pakistan Observer’ where he served as the chief artist. He also started working for the Observer group’s other publications namely Chitrali, a cine magazine, and Purbadesh, a news magazine. He went back to Dhaka Art College in 1965. He was promoted to the position of assistant professor in 1970, to associate professor in 1986, and to professor in 1991. He retired from the organization in 1994 but he kept teaching in the institute until 2002.
He received numerous awards throughout his career. The notable of them are the Imperial Court Prize, 5th Tehran Biennale, Iran (1966), the Silver Jubilee Award of the Bangladesh College of Arts and Crafts (1973), National Book Center Gold medal cover design (1975), Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy Award (1977), Ekushey Padak (1986), Bangabandhu Award (1994), the Sultan Smrity Padak (2001) and the Independence Day Award (2014).
Chowdhury was a noteworthy illustrator and graphic designer and won the National Book Center Prize for the best cover design for ten years in a row. He taught at the Institute of Fine Arts, University of Dhaka, for 37 years and retired in 1997. He died on November 30, 2014, after collapsing on the stage during a music festival.

Freedom Fighter

“Freedom Fighter” is a 2007 painting by Qayyum Chowdhury that pays respect to our war heroes, who fought heroically, who sacrificed their lives, who secretly helped succeed our warriors, and those who came back alive. After almost four decades of independence, he painted our freedom fighters fighting against oppression and for victory. He used the color of protest in the sky, added green in the background to resonate with our nature, and painted our freedom fighters with flag and rifles in hand. We see men and women both fighting, burning with rage, and suffering for freeing the country. In his enthusiasm, he paints our national flag with a golden map on it, the map that our freedom fighters used during the liberation war.
Freedom Fighter celebrates our heroes and remembers their sacrifice with the utmost respect.

At The End of The Day

“At the end of the day” portrays the moment when the sun is setting and night is about to fall. In his frame, Qayyum Chowdhury captures our fishermen coming home after whole days of work and paint them in the day’s last ray of light. This 2003 painting narrates the life and struggle of our fishermen. Every day they leave for work and goes out to earn their meal, support their family. And every day the come back with the little money they earned, some grains and fishes. At the end of the day, they are exactly where they started their day. Still, they ignore the danger of the unknown and dedicate their lives in the hope of turning the wheel of luck.
This painting tribute the dauntless courage of our common man.

Artist Art Style

His decisive contribution to the pre- and post-independence cultural firmament made him a household name. The cultural figure that he became was linked with his organic engagement with graphic design and painting. And in both arenas, his easily recognizable motifs and imagery, inclined to evoke the rural, help to conserve his reputation over the decades. As he was particularly interested in a crucial aesthetic stratagem of employing forms and lines to forward a deshi brio of his own making, his paintings were often considered an extension of his graphic sensibility.