Collection of Miss Ester Graff

Lauritz Auction House, Ro🐼skilde, Denmark, 19 🔯April 2022, lot 6190781

Ester Graff (1897 – 1991) was a Danish entrepreneur and activ🍰ist. From 1922, she worked at what is now Unilever, and later was the CEO of the Danish branch of Lintas, an Indian advertising and communications agency. In 1952, Graff became the 4th President of the International Alliance of Women (IAW), serving in the role until 1958.

Born in 1914 in Kishoreganj, in the erstwhile East Pakistan, Zainul Abedin played a pioneering role in the development of the mo♛dern art movement in Bangladesꦍh. He studied painting at the Government School of Art in Calcutta from 1933 to 1938, where he also taught until 1947. In 1948 he founded the Government Institute of Arts and Crafts (now Institute of Fine Arts) in Dhaka and was its first Principal.

Over the four decades of his artistic career, Abedin faithfully depicted the land and lives of everyday people and the plight of human society. ‘The rural proletariat and the nature of Bangladesh have been his most favourite subjects.’ (M. Islam, Art Of Bangladesh Series 1, Zainul Abedin, Eastern Regal Industries, 1977, unpaginated) His lifelong quest to raise awareness for the common people through his art was greatly influenced by the famine of 1943 and Partition of 1947, in which Abedin witnessed his home scarred by harrowing human degradation and displacemen🌱t.

Despite the political and natural tragedies Abedin witnessed throughout his 𒁃life,&nb𓆉sp;he continued to produce works that spoke about his love for his country and his people. The body of work he left behind is testament to the wide range of subject matters he was determined to immortalize. From the dark scenes of the famine to the lustrous depictions of Bangladesh’s rivers, women collecting water, farmers, fishermen and animals regularly pervaded his compositions, refusing to be overlooked or ignored.

Regarding his artistic influences, Abedin favoured Bengal modernism over the neo-classicism of the Tagores or the folk revivalism of Jamini Roy. He fashioned his own idiom, depicting highly abstracted figures, simplifying his arrangements and using primary colours. The current lot from 1955 is a touching depiction of a mother and child. The woman, with her unembellished form and ꧃elongated Modigliani-esque neck, is beautifully stylized. Her protective posture over the sleeping child speaks to the heart and compassion embodied by the people of Abedin's homeland.