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Sheikh Mohammed Sultan (1923-1994),
more well known as SM Sultan, was a painter
from Bangladesh. Sultan was born on 10 August
1923 in Masimdia, Narail district, East
Bengal (now Bangladesh).
Biography
After only five years of schooling in Victoria
Collegiate School in Narail, Sultan joined
his father to work as a mason. He began
to draw the buildings his father used to
work on and developed an artistic disposition.
He wanted to go to Kolkata to study art,
but his family did not have the means to
send him there. Eventually, Sultan went
to Kolkata in 1938 with monetary support
from the local zamindar (landlord).
Having inadequate qualifications for admission
into the Art School in Kolkata, Sultan only
managed to get in through the help of Shahid
Suhrawardy, a member of the governing body
of the School. Sultan also stayed at Suhrawardy's
house and was allowed use of his library.
Sultan, however, never completed his education.
After three years in the school, his bohemian
nature had the better of him and off he
went travelling around India and working
as a freelance artist. During his travel,
he made a living by drawing the portraits
of allied soldiers who had camped at the
place he was visiting. During this period,
his first exhibition was held in Simla,
though none of these works have survived,
mainly due to Sultan's own indifference
towards preserving his work. After living
and working in Kashmir for a while, Sultan
returned to Narail in the wake of the Partition
of India, Narail now part of Bangladesh.Then
again, in 1951, he left for Karachi. There
he taught as an art teacher at a school,
and came in contact with artists like Abdur
Rahman Chughtai and Shaker Ali, with whom
he developed lasting friendship. In 1950
Sultan had gone to USA - exhibiting his
work in New York, Washington, Chicago, and
Boston, and later in London. In 1953 he
returned to Narail. There he built a school
for children, and a menagerie. He lived
in a house full of cats and snakes. Except
for occasional visits to Dhaka (where he
had his first exhibition in 1976) he lived
in the quiet isolation of his house.
A confirmed bachelor, Sultan settled down
in an abandoned building in Narail overlooking
the river Chitra, where he lived ever since
with an adopted family and pets of his own
including dogs, mongoose and monkeys. Sultan
would later build a mini-zoo near his home.
Apart from occasional visits to Dhaka, the
capital, Sultan only once left Narail for
any substantial period of time. He became
interested in a ruined house in Sonargaon,
pretty much like his own home in Narail,
and lived there for a period.
Sultan's first exhibition in Dhaka was in
1976, inordinately late for a painter of
his stature. Sultan died in 1994.
Accolades
SM Sultan won the "Ekushey Padak"
in 1982, Bangladesh Charu Shilpi Sangsad
award in 1986 and the "Independence
Award" in 1993. In 1989, Tareque Masud
directed a 54 minute documentary film on
SM Sultan's life, called Adam Surat (The
Inner Strength). Masud started filming it
in 1982 with the help of the painter, and
traveled with him all around Bangladesh
with Sultan. According to Masud, Sultan
agreed to cooperate only on the condition
that "... rather than being the film's
subject, he would act as a catalyst to reveal
the film's true protagonist, the Bengali
peasant". Bangladesh government recently
completed the construction of Sultan memorial
complex though it hasn't yet been inaugurated.
Sultan, of course, had a special relation
with Narail. He was known to the locals
as "Lal Mia", a most informal
and homely name only to be given to a close
person. Chetona Theatre from Norail has
staged Aango Lal Mia (Our Lal Mia) on Sultan.
In 2005, famous Bangladeshi photographer
Nasir Ali Mamun published a book named Guru
with 68 photographs of Sultan. These were
selected from thousands of photographs taken
by Mamun in the period from 1978, when he
first met Sultan until his death.
http://en.wikipedia.org/
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