THE promising book-cover illustration display, held recently at Zainul Gallery-2, brought forth the lyrical water-colour work of young artists. These artists were from the Institute of Fine Arts, Dhaka university, and had held a three-day workshop, in July 2004, at BARD, Comilla. The workshop and the following display had been organised by Save the Children (uSA). A swift appraisal of the paintings made one aware of the depth of comprehension, and sophistication of choice of colours and lines by the skilled artists. The enthusiastic and determined painters had done a fine job of delineating stories by Bangla litterateurs of repute, presented in numerous

book forms at the venue.

Javed Iqbal, who works in Save the Children (USA), Education Programme, explained the show, “One poem, one book” in progress. The illustrations presented books with 20 poems and 20 authors in all. Each poem had been contained in a book. The litterateurs included in the series of books were Madan Mohan, Tarkalanker, Rabindranath Tagore, Kazi Nazrul Islam, Nirmalendu Gun, Al-Mahmood and Shamsur Rahman. The purpose of the exhibit was to popularise the poems through illustrations in order to guide the school teachers. Javed Iqbal said that the art materials were supplied by the Institute of Fine Arts and included nine male and one female participants. The illustrators, he said, were put into 10 groups.

They produced seven pictures for each particular poem, he added.

Wajmur Nihar Runti, speaking about the show and her background, said, “ I study in the final year of Oriental Art. My teachers have been Nasreen Begum, late Shawkatuzaman, Abdus Sattar and Hashem Khan among others. I've really enjoyed their guidance and inspiration. If I've reached any height it's because of my teachers, and of course my own toil and inspiration. She said that this was the fist time that she found an entire book based on a single poem. About the exhibition, Runti said,” I found the programme well-organised .The manner of displaying the fresh talent was indeed admirable, I illustrated two books, Projapoti by Kazi Nazrul Islam and Ashar by Rabindranath

Tagore.” Last year Runti had won two coveted Best Awards from the Institute of Fine Arts.

Abdus Sattar Towfiq, whose work had been seen earlier this year in the show “Dynamic 5”, at the same venue as the book illustration exhibit, throwing light on the exhibit, said, “I illustrated Rabindranath Tagore's Haat and Shobdar Daktar by Husne Ara. My teachers in my department are Farida Zaman, Shishir Bhattacharya, Jamal Ahmed and Nisar Hussain among others.” Asked about his experience at the workshop, Towfiq said that they had worked in unison and that the experience had been wonderful.