Aminul Islam was among the first graduates of the newly established Government Art Institute in Dhaka, founded by Zainul Abedin in 1948. He is also considered a forerunner of critical art-writing in Bangladesh. Following higher study in Florence and a tour of Europe in the fifties, Islam charted a new course that took him beyond sterile conventions to modernist expressions with forms, colour and perspective. His left-leaning ideologies would not allow him to entirely banish figures from his canvases. An autobiographical streak runs through many of his early works. In course of time his work became increasingly geometrically organised.
Islam taught at the Government Institute of Fine Art for almost three decades. He received the Grand Imperial Prize at the 5th Tehran Biennale (1966), the Ekushey Padak (1981), and the Independence Award (1988), among other honours.