Outstanding among the pioneering figures in our art world, Murtaja Baseer has evolved a distinctive modern idiom through years of dedicated creative activity. Bengal Gallery of Fine Arts had organized a fortnight long retrospective art exhibition titled ‘Murtaja Baseer : 55 Years of Artistic Endeavour’ which started from Wednesday, 17th August 2005, the artist’s 73rd birth anniversary, at Bengal Shilpalaya. Art Critic and Playwright Syeed Ahmed graced the occasion as Chief Guest and inaugurated the exhibition while artist Qayyum Chowdhury was present as a special guest.

Murtaja Baseer has never been restricted to one particular school or genre of art. His creative talents have flourished in diverse art forms and modes of expression. His creativity draws on elements of history, tradition and art, as well as the tension inherent therein. Murtaja Baseer has devoted himself to study and travel – he has been moved by newer concepts and has striven for newer forms of expression. In Florence, he studied the pre-Renaissance artists and innovated a cubist trend that he called Transparencism. There is an individualistic dialectic in his work and sensibility. He explores forms in the abstract and brings out the abstraction inherent in forms. Although it is inappropriate to categorise him under one trend or another, we find in Murtaja Baseer’s works a marked propensity for abstract realism. He has enriched our art with his facile and spontaneously engaged creative faculty spanning 55 years. Bengal Gallery of Fine Arts presents in this “Murtaja Baseer : 55 Years of Artistic Endeavour” exhibition, the harvest so to speak, of Baseer’s creativity of over 5 decades. We are happy to be able to organize this exhibition on the 73rd anniversary of his birth. We wish him a very happy birthday. We hope Murtaja Baseer’s unending creative energy will inspire as all. – Bengal Gallery of Fine Arts.

Date: 05.01.2010 – 11.01.2010
Venue: Bangladesh College of Arts and Crafts
Organiser: Bengal Foundation