The Many Shades of Freedom

An integral part of Bangladesh’s liberation movement, veteran artist Shahabuddin Ahmed brings his works to India

IT SEEMS rather natural when Shahabuddin Ahmed says that his recent set of works is themed on liberation. After all, it is a virtue that he fought hard for. Hours before Bangladesh got independence on December 16, 1971, he — along with his compatriots from a platoon of Mukti Bahini (the guerrilla resistance movement formed during the Bangladesh War of Liberation) — had hoisted the flag of the new nation on the building of the Dhaka Radio Office, then the Pakistan Radio.

Years later, he is exploring the same shades of freedom. Painted in vibrant colours, with sweeping brushstrokes, 12 of his large canvases are being exhibited at the Rashtrapati Bhavan Museum Art Gallery. Titled “Shanti”, through the set of works, the Paris-based artist hopes to encourage peace. “The situation now is very sad. There is so much disturbance everywhere,” says the 67-year-old, who is the first foreign artist to live in Rashtrapati Bhavan as a guest of President Pranab Mukherjee. He will stay as an Artist In-residence for five days, from February 18 to 22.

He still recalls the jubilation that followed the news that the Instrument of Surrender had been signed by Pakistan’s Lieutenantgeneral AAK Niazi in Dhaka. This was the moment that the 22-year-old had been fighting for nine months with Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the founding father of Bangladesh.

A student at the Bangladesh College of Arts & Crafts, Ahmed had also won another battle at home — to fulfil his ambition to pursue a career in art, that had his parents initially worried about his future. Their hesitant consent only came after their teenage son won an art competition organised in Pakistan. A landscape with a river flowing, the depiction was way different from the language of art that Ahmed was to discover later — one that was rooted in Bangladesh but polished in Paris. Rahman was the one who had encouraged him to take the scholarship to Ecole Nationale Superieure des Beaux-arts de Paris in 1974. “He told me you must go, beat Picasso, and asked if I could do it,” recalls Ahmed.

A keen admirer of Bengali painter Zainul Abedin, the French capital is where Ahmed first saw the works of European masters such as Rembrandt, Goya, Manet and Picasso. It was, however, Francis Bacon’s crucified and tormented figures that attracted him most. In the years to come, Ahmed, too, was to paint several human figures. Fearless and full of hope, these strive to break the shackles. “The experience of war has guided my path, but I don’t paint war. What I want to depict is human suffering in defiant postures and borderline situations, in which the individual has to reach his limits. Nor do I choose death as a subject, because deep down, the nature of my interest is rather optimistic,” says Ahmed.

The display at Rashtrapati Bhavan follows President Mukherjee’s appreciation of his work when he inaugurated the same show in Kolkata at the Ganges Art Gallery in 2015. Apart from Ahmed’s valiant figures, the set also has portraits of Mujibur Rahman, Rabindranath Tagore and Mahatma Gandhi. “India, too, is my own country,” says the artist, who won the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in 2014 for his contribution to art in France.

The exhibition at Rashtrapati Bhavan Museum, Delhi, is on till February 22