Rafiqun-Nabi

Rafiqun-Nabi

Born & Death
1943
Details
Rafiqun Nabi is known not only for his bold and exceptional paintings, engravings and drawings, but also for his scathing cartoons. Ranabi (Nabi’s pen name as the creator of the street urchin Tokai) on the one hand, is enthusiastically inclined to depict stories of social relevance where Tokai comes off a witty, acerbic character who constantly grapples with the anomalies of life, and on the other hand, in his prints, drawings and paintings, the artist captures the essence of the rural landscape and the lives of the toiling masses. Few painters have been able to impart such childlike wonder to images of Bangladesh’s rural beauty. Nabi developed an interest in art during his school days which were spent in the old part of Dhaka. He was also fascinated by David Low’s cartoons. He graduated from the Government College of Art and Craft in Dhaka, where Aminul slam, Kazi Abdul Basset, and Anwarul Huq were among the teachers who inspired him. Nabi started teaching, but in the wake of the student uprising in the sixties against the Pakistan junta, he participated actively in the protests. Nabi went on to study printmaking in Athens. He was the first Dean of the Faculty of Fine Arts, University of Dhaka. Nabi’s awards include the Ekushey Padak (1993), among other honours.

Some of Works