NARAIL: The 90th birth anniversary of world-renowned artist SM Sultan is being observed across the country including Narail on Sunday.

Different organizations including Sultan Foundation and district administration have chalked out daylong programmes to mark the day.

The programmes are set to begin with placing of floral wreaths at the artist’s grave in Masumdia area at Narail.

Qurankhani, milad mahfil, mazar ziarat, art competition and discussion session are scheduled to be held at Shishu Swarga auditorium in the town.

Additional deputy commissioner (general) Ananda Kumar Biswas is likely to preside over the programs.

On this day in 1923, Sultan was born at Masimdia village in Narail.

Sultan was born to Messer Ali, a mason by profession. Sultan's formal schooling started at the Narail Victoria Collegiate School in 1928 where he studied for only five years. Then he joined his father in masonry. Being greatly influenced by his father's works in building gigantic houses, he started drawing and painting.

Even as a child he felt a strong artistic urge. He seized every opportunity to draw with charcoal, and developed his talent depicting the buildings his father worked on. Sultan wanted to study art in Calcutta (Kolkata), but his family did not have the means to send him. Eventually, he secured financial support from the local zamindar and went to Calcutta in 1938.

Sultan left art school after three years, in 1944, and traveled around India. He earned his living by drawing portraits of Allied soldiers encamped along his route. His first exhibition was a solo one in Shimla, India, in 1946. Next, after Partition, came two individual exhibitions in Pakistan: Lahore in 1948 and Karachi in 1949. None of his artworks from this period survive, mainly due to Sultan's own indifference towards preserving his work.

Professor Lala Rukh Selim, Chairman of the Department of Sculpture, University of Dhaka, described Sultan as one of the four pioneers of Bangladeshi modernism, along with Zainul Abedin, Safiuddin Ahmed, and Quamrul Hassan.

Sultan received the Ekushey Padak, Bangladesh's highest civilian award for contribution in the field of arts, in 1982; the Bangladesh Charu Shilpi Sangsad Award in 1986; and the Independence Day Award, the highest state award given by the government of Bangladesh, in 1993 for his contribution to fine arts.

SM Sultan died on October 10, 1994, at Jessore Combined Military Hospital (CMH) after suffering from prolonged breathing illness.

BDST: 1131 HRS, AUG 10, 2014