He was well known for his leadership qualities in organising artists and art activities in a place that had practically no recent history of institutional or professional art. It was through the efforts of Zainul Abedin and a few of his colleagues that a tradition ofmodern art took shape in Bangladesh just within a decade. For his artistic and visionary qualities the title ofShilpacharya has been bestowed on him.

Born in Mymensingh in 1914, Zainul grew up amidst a placid surrounding dominated by the river Brahmaputra. The river and the open nature inspired him from his early life. He got himself admitted in Calcutta Government Art School in 1933 and learnt for five years the British/European academic style that the school diligently followed. In 1938, he joined the faculty of the Art School, and continued to paint in his laid-back, romantic style. A series of watercolours that Zainul did as his tribute to the river Brahmaputra earned him the Governor's Gold Medal in an all-India exhibition in 1938. It was a recognition that brought him into the limelight, and gave him the confidence to forge a style of his own.