Mohammad Kibria

Mohammad Kibria (1929–2011) was one of the most internationally acclaimed Bangladeshi abstract artists — a painter and printmaker whose work synthesised Japanese aesthetics with Bengali sensibility, creating a visual language that was uniquely his own.

Born in Rajshahi, he studied at the Government Institute of Fine Arts in Dhaka before winning a scholarship to study in Tokyo, Japan, under the Colombo Plan. In Tokyo, he immersed himself in Japanese woodblock printing traditions and Zen-influenced aesthetics, which profoundly shaped his subsequent work.

Returning to Bangladesh, Kibria joined the faculty of the Institute of Fine Arts, Dhaka, where he taught for many years. His abstract paintings — large canvases of layered colour fields, gestural marks, and subtle textures — draw on both the Bengali landscape and the meditative traditions of Japanese art. His palette was restrained and sophisticated: ochres, greys, deep blues, and earthy reds.

His prints, influenced by Japanese mokuhanga (woodblock) traditions, achieved international exhibition and collection in Japan, Europe, and North America.

He received the Ekushey Padak in 1980.