“Many may not think the life of the peasantry could be a subject of art. But I don’t think there should be any objection if I choose the people who produce our crops and provide our food as the topic of my paintings” (Artist statement, T. Masud, Adam Surot, Bangladesh, 1989).

Sheikh Mohammad Sultan lived an unconventional life, rejecting societal pressures and refusing to be constrained by conventions and expectations. Born in 1923 in what is now rural Bangladesh, Sultan lost his mother at a young age and grew up with his father who was a mason and farmer. He attended Calcutta Art College for three years, but left in 1944 before completing his degree, possibly as a rejection of the expectations of artists fostered at the colonial institution. Nevertheless, he continued to paint, traveling to America and Europe in the early 1950s and exhibiting his work alongside masters such as Pablo Picasso, Salvador Dali, and Henri Matisse.

Fascinated by nature from a young age, Sultan would sometimes paint with natural dyes he made from coal, turmeric and the colored seeds of various plants, and held fast to the ideology that art had the power to provide hope and to heal. It is unsurprising, then, that he strove to support and amplify the voices of the systematically oppressed in his work. In 1953, Sultan returned to Bangladesh and began helping those in rural areas without many resources, focusing on art education for children.

After the War of Liberation in 1971, Sultan’s art took on a political tone as well, underlining various injustices the artist saw in modern Bangladeshi society. It was during this period that Sultan explored the relationship between power and the human form, depicting Bangladeshi peasants with exaggerated hyper-muscular physiques. Their brawny figures symbolized their inner strength in the face of an unjust capitalist system and harsh realities in the country including severe poverty and starvation (L. Rukh Selim, ‘Art of Bangladesh: the Changing Role of Tradition, Search for Identity and Globalization,’ South Asia Multidisciplinary Academic Journal, 2014, p. 10, accessed January 2023).

The current lot, painted ten years after the War, is a significant example of Sultan’s work from this time. Here, the artist portrays the men and women of rural Bangladesh as its true heroes, rendering them with his characteristic amplified musculature. Sultan also pays homage to nature through his muted color scheme. Brown and green dominate his palette, referencing the land of rural Bangladesh and the life it generates and sustains.