Shotoborshe Sultan: Portrait of a legend
The centenary exhibition brings together Nasir Ali Mamun’s photographs and rare archives to retrace the life and art of Bangladesh’s legendary painter S M Sultan
On a quiet afternoon at Bengal Shilpalay, the walls hum with silence. Yet it is not empty silence—it is thick with memory, gaze, and whispers of a man who wandered along the banks of the Chitra River, painted farmers as titans, and played his flute to the rhythm of birdsong. Here, in the black-and-white stillness of Nasir Ali Mamun's photographs, Sheikh Mohammad Sultan—our Sultan—walks again.
'Shotoborshe Sultan', the centenary exhibition dedicated to one of Bangladesh's most legendary painters, is not merely a showcase of pictures. It is a journey through time, curated by the man who followed him with a camera for nearly two decades.
Organised by Bengal Foundation in collaboration with HSBC Bangladesh, the exhibition opened on 22 August at Bengal Shilpalay, Dhanmondi, and will end on 27 September.
Keep updated, follow The Business Standard's Google news channel
Born in 1953, Nasir Ali Mamun is a name synonymous with portrait photography in Bangladesh. Winner of the Ekushey Padak, the Shilpakala Padak, and a Bangla Academy fellowship, Mamun is celebrated for capturing the essence of his subjects in stark, unembellished frames. Yet, among all his encounters, none left a deeper mark than his first meeting with S M Sultan in the mid-1970s.
Mamun once confessed that when he first saw Sultan's paintings, he was spellbound. The figures—farmers and labourers painted with almost mythic musculature—seemed to him like guardians of the soil. Soon after, destiny offered him the chance to meet the artist in 1976. He continued to meet the artist at his home in Narail.
There he discovered Sultan not only as a painter, but as a being of contradictions: withdrawn yet charismatic, solitary yet surrounded by animals, rooted in soil yet soaring in imagination.
"It was not easy," Mamun recalls in his note at the exhibition, "but I silently followed him with my camera. Through these frames, I tried to uncover the mystery of his life and become one with him."
The 108 photographs on display span the years 1977 to 1993. They are not glamorous portraits but windows into an interior world. Here is Sultan in his old Renaissance-style house, brushing paint on canvas.
There he sits cross-legged, playing his flute as cats curl at his feet. In one image, he stares past the lens with eyes like unanswered questions. In another, the village women who shaped his worldview stand near the greenery he adored.
"He would not just live with cats and other domestic animals–he would live among nature, including venomous snakes. He would tread on broken pathways of grass and trees, not traditional paths. That's the kind of person he was."
Mamun utilised natural light, often taking shots with a slow shutter speed. The resulting images dissolve into a void where backgrounds vanish, leaving only Sultan—his curly mane of hair a halo, his presence a flicker of light. Black and white became more than aesthetic; it became a metaphor for the contrasts of his life.
For the first time, Mamun has also opened parts of his private archive: Sultan's handwritten letters, sketches, diary pages, and even three preserved teeth. Together, they paint a fuller picture of an artist who lived on his own terms, indifferent to convention.
Sultan's art was never a mere representation of reality. He refused to paint farmers as frail or anonymous. To him, they were the backbone of the nation, the silent strength carrying its burdens.
"People cannot see their strength," he once explained to Mamun, "but I can." In his canvases, their arms swelled like tree trunks, their torsos rivalled mythic heroes. It was a radical humanism, a refusal to let the exploited remain invisible.
One cannot miss the tenderness in the images of Sultan with his cats or his parrot. "A person cannot love anyone deeply unless they love animals," he told Mamun.
The exhibition also launched two books on Sultan, alongside a commemorative catalogue titled 'Seeding the Soul'. This publication, like the exhibition itself, attempts to understand not only what Sultan painted but why he painted the way he did.
The Bengal Foundation, for its part, has long been a custodian of Sultan's legacy—helping to conserve over 150 of his works and founding the S M Sultan Bengal Art College in Narail.
In his portraits, Sultan appears not as an unreachable genius, but as a man rooted in soil, fragile and fierce at once.
'Shotoborshe Sultan' is thus not only about a painter or a photographer. It is about their dialogue—a conversation between brush and lens, art and life, solitude and companionship.
