Veteran artist Murtaja Baseer turns 86 today. On the occasion of celebrating the birthday of eminent artist, cartoonist and language movement activist Murtaja Baseer, Amina Baseer Memorial Trust Fund has organised a lecture on Murtaja Baseer at the auditorium of Asiatic Society of Bangladesh in the capital’s Ramna area.
Professor Emeritus of Dhaka University Anisuzzaman will speak at the programme on the topic ‘Murtaja Baseer: Manush O Shilpo’. Murtaja Baseer passed matriculation from Bogra Corronation Institute in 1949. He got involved with the movement as he was a member of the students’ federation. In 1948, during the initial part of the language movement, he worked for the movement in the city of Bogra organizing a number of rallies and meetings held.
In 1949, he got admitted to the Government Institute of Arts and Crafts. He spent 5 months in prison in 1950 and finally proved to be innocent. On February 21, he joined the meeting of Amtala at Dhaka University. Later that day, went to Dhaka museum to postpone the exhibition for the violating circumstances. He also joined the Gayebana Janaja on February 22 and later had to hide from the police as they tried to arrest the activists. He drew cartoons and festoons for the movement. Many of his cartoons describe the sacrifice of the martyrs of the language movement and the struggle for the mother land.
Most of the paintings by Murtoza Bashir during the period of 1954-1960 captured the simplified reality of the everyday middle class and lower-middle class life.
Murtaja Baseer did not fix himself to a particular style and kept roaming between various figurative and semi-abstract approaches to complete abstraction. He did not just create paintings, murals and sculptures, he also invested much of his time in filmmaking, research, while exploring the realms of literature.
He received Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy Award, Ekushey Padak, Sultan Padak and Prix National Award in France. l