Exhibition on rickshaw, baby taxi paintings begins
From: www.bangladesh-web.com/news/ News From Bangladesh online, 4:6, 02 October 1999

A month-long exhibition of 500 paintings of rickshaw and baby taxi of 83 painters began at the Alliance Francaise yesterday. State Minister for Youth, Sports and Cultural Affairs Obaidul Quader was the chief guest at the opening ceremony of the exhibition. Charge d'Affaires of France Jean-Guy de Wargny and Director General of the National Museum Shamsuzzaman Khan were the guests of honour. Director of Alliance Francaise France Lasnier also spoke. After the exhibition the Alliance Francaise will lend the paintings to the Folk Art Section of the National Museum on a permanent basis. Obaidul Quader thanked Alliance Francaise for organising the exhibition. France Lasnier said the rickshaw and baby taxi paintings should be preserved. She said the exhibition portrayed a living heritage of Bangladesh. Shamsuzzaman Khan said a lively picture of contemporary life in Bangladesh was evident in the paintings. There are about 500,000 rickshaws, 35,000 baby taxis and 250 painters in Dhaka, the organisers said. While talking to this reporter painters Alamgir, Shanti Das, SA Malek, DC Das, Ali Noor and S Shamsu said they were facing an uncertain future as the government was thinking about phasing out auto-rickshaws from the city streets in a bid to check environment pollution. Their income had already come down. A rickshaw [or] baby taxi painter used to earn between Tk 7,000 to Tk 20,000 a month previously but now the income has declined to Tk 3,000 to 10,000, they said [Taka 50 = $1.00 US]. The increase in the priceof baby taxi chassis is another cause of fall in the income of the painters, they informed. Many of them are in the trade for generations. It would be difficult for them to find an alternative job, they said. They use enamel paint to produce their art works. On an average a painter paints 4 to 7 plates a day. The show will remain open from 3 pm to 8 pm everyday. On Friday it will remain open from 10 am to 8 pm. (The Independent)

Comment by JK: This is the first ever official exhibit of actual ricksha art panels in Bangladesh. For many years ricksha art was more or less scorned by the elites and art connoisseurs as vulgar and of no consequence. Bangladeshi fine artists, on the other hand, appreciated it and some, such as painter Chandrashekhar in Chittagong, put ricksha references in their own works. It has finally come into its own thanks to the Alliance Francaise and its Director, Mme France Lasnier.

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