Zainul Abedin (Kishoreganj, 1914 – Dhaka, 1976) — known throughout Bangladesh and the South Asian art world as Shilpacharya, the Grand Master of Arts — is the founding father of modern Bangladeshi art and one of the most significant Asian artists of the twentieth century. In 1943, living in Calcutta during the catastrophic Bengal Famine, he made his own ink from burnt charcoal and drew directly onto cheap brown packing paper: the result was the Famine Sketches — a series of devastating images of skeletal figures dying on the roadside that became one of the most powerful visual testimonies of human suffering in the history of modern art. His auction record stands at $692,048 (£516,000) for an ink and wash work on paper executed in 1970, set at Sotheby’s London in September 2024 — the highest price ever achieved for a Bangladeshi artwork at auction. In the last two years alone, seven of his works have sold at auction for six-figure sums. Ponti Art Gallery offers free valuations of South Asian and international modern art with same-day response.
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Auction prices and market values
The market for Zainul Abedin has undergone a dramatic transformation in recent years. In the last couple of years, seven works by Abedin have sold at auction for six-figure sums. Works that languished in Pakistani and Bangladeshi private collections for decades are now reaching international auction rooms — and consistently surpassing their estimates by multiples.
| Type of work | Period / Notes | Price range |
|---|---|---|
| Ink and wash works on paper (major pieces) | 1960s–1970s, signed and dated | $50,000 – $692,000+ |
| Oil on canvas (large formats) | Santal series, figurative works 1960s–1970s | $100,000 – $381,000+ |
| Watercolours on paper (significant works) | 1940s–1960s, landscapes and figures | $20,000 – $120,000 |
| Famine Sketches (ink on brown paper) | 1943–1944, the most historically significant series | $30,000 – $200,000+ |
| Drawings and smaller works on paper | Various periods, signed | $5,000 – $70,000 |
| Early watercolours | 1930s–1940s, Brahmaputra series and studies | $2,000 – $20,000 |
The key factors determining value: the series (Famine Sketches and Santal works command the highest prices), the medium (oils and major ink works outperform smaller pieces), the date (works from the 1960s–1970s are the most sought after), the provenance (works gifted directly by the artist to documented recipients are extremely desirable), and the signature — Abedin signed his works “Zainul” followed by the date, often with a location inscribed.
Recent auction records
The auction record for any Bangladeshi artist is held by Zainul Abedin. At the “Modern & Contemporary South Asian Art” auction organised by Sotheby’s in London on 26 September 2024, Abedin’s painting “Untitled” — an ink and wash on paper, signed and dated “Zainul / 1970” — was sold for £516,000 (approximately $692,048). The work had been gifted by Abedin to Cedomil Plazek, a hydrogeologist who lived in Dhaka while working for the United Nations. A second work from the same collection, “Untitled (Group of Figures)”, sold at the same auction for £480,000 ($643,690). A third piece, “Untitled (Figures)” — ink and pencil on paper, signed “Zainul / 25/5/70 / Jordan” — achieved £216,000 ($289,663).
Earlier in 2024, two paintings set record prices at auction: “Untitled (Couple)”, depicting a Santal couple in oil on canvas from 1963, sold for $381,000; another untitled painting of a woman at rest in a sky-blue saree and scarlet bangles sold for $279,400. Both were from the estate of Jamsheed K. Marker and Diana J. Marker. In March 2025, a 1969 oil painting depicting traditional fishing boats used on the Bay of Bengal sold at Christie’s for $119,700 against an estimate of $60,000 to $80,000. At Sotheby’s, one of his ink sketches made $69,850 — almost ten times its $7,000 high estimate.
Abedin’s prices are described by experts as “still nothing compared to other South Asian artists and compared to his art-historical contribution” — suggesting that the current market, despite its recent momentum, may still be significantly undervaluing his work relative to its historical importance.
The Famine Sketches: art as moral witness
In 1943, Calcutta was a city under the shadow of famine. The Bengal Famine — caused by a combination of wartime disruption, hoarding, and colonial mismanagement — killed between two and three million people across Bengal. Zainul Abedin was living in the city, teaching at the Calcutta Government Art School. He watched people dying on the street. He had no expensive materials. He made his own ink by burning charcoal and used it on cheap, ordinary packing paper. What he created in those weeks is among the most devastating visual records of human catastrophe ever produced.
The Famine Sketches are not sentimental. They are not melodramatic. They are simply — and devastatingly — accurate. Skeletal bodies on pavements. Mothers with hollow eyes. The extraordinary economy of Abedin’s line — a few strokes of ink on brown paper — makes each figure not a statistic but a person. When the series was exhibited in 1944, it shocked Calcutta’s art world and brought him immediate international recognition. The series is considered one of the greatest artistic protests against injustice in the history of South Asian art.
The technical choice was itself a statement: no expensive canvas, no gallery-quality paper. The cheapest possible materials — because the subject was the cheapest possible life, the life that colonial power had reduced to nothing. This alignment of medium and message is one of the reasons the Famine Sketches continue to feel so urgent eighty years later.
The Santal series and later work
After Partition in 1947, Abedin moved to Dhaka and devoted himself to building an art institution from scratch. But he never stopped painting. Through the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s his style evolved — moving from the raw social realism of the Famine Sketches towards a more lyrical, sometimes abstract register, while always remaining rooted in the communities and landscapes of Bengal.
The Santal series — works depicting the Santal people, a plain-land indigenous community of East Bengal — became one of his most celebrated bodies of work and now commands the highest prices at international auction. These paintings show a deep sympathy with community and ritual, rendered with his characteristically economical command of line. The “Untitled (Couple)” sold for $381,000 in 2024; another Santal sketch sold for nearly ten times its estimate in March 2025.
His two great late scrolls are among the most ambitious works in the history of Bangladeshi art. Nabanna is a 65-foot scroll portraying rural Bengal; Manpura ’70 is a 32-foot scroll recalling the devastation of the 1970 cyclone that killed hundreds of thousands of people in the Bay of Bengal delta. Neither could be sold through a conventional art market — they are national monuments. In 1970 he travelled to Palestinian refugee camps in Syria and Jordan and made sixty to seventy paintings of the refugees there — extending his lifelong vocation as a witness to human suffering across borders.
In 1971, during the political movement leading up to Bangladesh’s Liberation War, Abedin formed the Charu O Karu Shilpi Sangram Parishad and renounced his Hilal-e-Imtiaz title — Pakistan’s highest civilian honour, which he had received in 1959 — in protest against the Pakistani military regime.
Shilpacharya: the institution builder
Zainul Abedin’s legacy in Bangladesh is not only artistic — it is institutional. When he arrived in Dhaka after Partition, there was no art school, no faculty, no organised structure for the teaching and practice of modern art. He felt the lack of an art school and set about trying to make art education available to all. In 1948 he helped establish the Institute of Arts and Crafts — now the Faculty of Fine Arts at the University of Dhaka — and served as its founding principal from 1949 until his voluntary retirement in 1967.
The title Shilpacharya — meaning “Grand Master of Arts” in Bengali — was awarded to him in honour of this dual achievement: the painter and the teacher, the artist and the institution builder. His students and succeeding generations of artists set up art schools in various parts of the country including at Chittagong, Rajshahi, Khulna, Mymensingh, Bogra, Narayanganj and Narail. In 1975, one year before his death, he founded the Folk Art Museum at Sonargaon in Narayanganj — the first museum dedicated to Bangladeshi folk art. In 2009, a crater on the planet Mercury was named Abedin after the painter. In December 2019, Google celebrated his 105th birthday with a Google Doodle.
Sell or value a work by Zainul Abedin
Ponti Art Gallery buys works by Zainul Abedin directly, with immediate payment and complete discretion. We are particularly interested in Famine Sketches, Santal series works, oil paintings of the 1960s–1970s, and signed watercolours and ink works of any period. We evaluate any work by the artist.
- Send us photographs of the front (including a close-up of the signature and the surface), the back, and any inscriptions or labels. Abedin signed his works “Zainul” followed by the date — often with the location also inscribed (e.g. “Zainul / 25/5/70 / Jordan”). Some works also carry a studio stamp.
- Please indicate the dimensions in centimetres, the medium (ink on paper, ink and wash on paper, watercolour on paper, oil on canvas, oil on board, mixed media), and the date if inscribed.
- Indicate the subject (Famine series, Santal figures, landscape, boats, figures, portrait, crow study) and any information about how the work was acquired.
- Indicate any available documentation: provenance from documented collections (the Marker estate, Pakistani private collections, direct gifts from the artist), previous auction records, exhibition history, or references in published catalogues — particularly the Skira monograph Great Masters of Bangladesh — Zainul Abedin (Bengal Foundation / Skira, 2012), the only comprehensive survey of his work to date.
- You will receive a preliminary valuation the same day and, if we are interested in purchasing, a direct offer.
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Quick questions about selling
How quickly can I sell a work by Zainul Abedin?
In the case of direct purchase, the transaction can close within a few days, with immediate payment.
What documents do I need?
The Skira monograph (Great Masters of Bangladesh — Zainul Abedin, 2012) is the main bibliographic reference. Provenance documentation — especially for works with a direct connection to the artist (gifts, studio provenance) — significantly increases both the credibility and the value of the work.
Biography of Zainul Abedin
Zainul Abedin is born in Kishoreganj, Mymensingh, on 29 December 1914, in what is then British India. He spends his early years along the banks of the Brahmaputra River — a landscape that would deeply influence his artistic vision throughout his life. He enrols at the Calcutta Government Art School in 1933. In 1938 a series of watercolours he makes of the Brahmaputra earns him the Governor’s Gold Medal at an all-India exhibition — his first moment in the international spotlight. He joins the faculty of the Calcutta Art School after graduation.
In 1943, living in Calcutta during the Bengal Famine, he creates the Famine Sketches — ink drawings on cheap brown packing paper, made with homemade charcoal ink. The series is exhibited in 1944 to immediate critical acclaim. After Partition in 1947, he moves to Dhaka. In 1948 he co-founds the Institute of Arts and Crafts (now the Faculty of Fine Arts, University of Dhaka) and becomes its founding principal in 1949. He receives the Hilal-e-Imtiaz — Pakistan’s highest civilian honour — in 1959. He retires voluntarily in 1967. In 1970 he travels to Palestinian refugee camps in Syria and Jordan, making sixty to seventy paintings of the refugees. In 1971, during the Bangladesh Liberation War, he renounces his Hilal-e-Imtiaz in protest against the Pakistani military regime and forms the artists’ resistance committee Charu O Karu Shilpi Sangram Parishad. He receives an honorary D.Litt from Delhi University in 1973 and is named National Professor of Bangladesh in 1975. In 1975 he also founds the Folk Art Museum at Sonargaon. He develops lung cancer and dies on 28 May 1976 in Dhaka. He is buried beside the Dhaka University Central Mosque.
How to identify an authentic work by Zainul Abedin
Signature: Abedin signed his works with “Zainul” followed by the date — typically written in the format “Zainul / day/month/year” in the lower right corner. Some works also carry a studio stamp. On Famine Sketches, the signature is often in the lower right corner of cheap brown packing paper — the paper itself is part of the authentication.
The Famine Sketches: the authentic Famine Sketches are made on brown packing paper in black ink — sometimes with ink made from charcoal. The paper has a specific texture and colour that is immediately recognisable to specialists. Works on white paper or with washes of colour are not Famine Sketches, though they may be other significant works from the same period.
Provenance: the most significant recent auction results have involved works with documented provenance — particularly works gifted directly by Abedin to friends and acquaintances (the Plazek collection, the Marker collection). Works with this kind of direct provenance command significant premiums. The Skira monograph (2012) remains the primary catalogue reference.
Attribution caution: as Abedin’s prices rise, the risk of misattribution increases. Works described simply as “attributed to” or “circle of” Zainul Abedin should be approached with caution and assessed by a specialist in South Asian modern art before purchase.
Frequently asked questions about Zainul Abedin’s artworks and prices
What is Zainul Abedin’s auction record?
$692,048 (£516,000) for an ink and wash work on paper executed in 1970, sold at Sotheby’s London in September 2024 — the highest price ever achieved for any Bangladeshi artwork at auction. In early 2024, an oil on canvas from the Santal series sold for $381,000 at Sotheby’s New York.
What does “Shilpacharya” mean?
Shilpacharya (শিল্পাচার্য) is a Bengali honorific meaning “Grand Master of Arts” or “Great Teacher of the Arts.” It was awarded to Zainul Abedin in recognition of his dual achievement as both a major painter and the founding figure of modern art education in Bangladesh. It is the title by which he is universally known in Bangladesh.
What are the Famine Sketches?
The Famine Sketches are a series of drawings made by Abedin in 1943 during the Bengal Famine, in which an estimated 2–3 million people died. Using black ink — sometimes made from burnt charcoal — on cheap brown packing paper, Abedin documented the suffering of starving people on the streets of Calcutta. The series is considered one of the most powerful visual testimonies of human suffering in the history of modern art.
Why are Abedin’s prices rising so rapidly?
Several factors converge: the global reassessment of South Asian modernism; the discovery of important works in old Pakistani and Bangladeshi private collections; the growth of a wealthy Bangladeshi collector base; and the simple recognition — long overdue — that Abedin’s art-historical importance was not reflected in his market prices. As The Art Newspaper noted in April 2025, experts consider his prices “still nothing compared to other South Asian artists and compared to his art-historical contribution.”
How can I sell a work by Zainul Abedin?
Send photographs of the front, back and signature via WhatsApp to (+39) 320 574 7749. Same-day response, free valuation. In the case of direct purchase, immediate payment and complete discretion.