Today is the 83rd anniversary of the birth of the eminent sculptor Novera Ahmed, who is considered the first modern sculptor in Bangladesh.

Born on March 29, 1939, Novera Ahmed’s works feature a gamut of themes, including Buddhist and contextual modern subject matters and styles ranging from western, folk and others.

She was inspired by her mother who used to make dolls and clay houses and was drawn to sculptures at a young age.

Novera studied design at Camberwell School of Arts and Crafts in London and graduated in 1955. Then she went on to receive further training in Florence and Vienna.

She rose to prominence in 1960 with Inner Gaze, the first-ever solo sculpture exhibition by any sculptor in the then Pakistan.

Novera Ahmed, along with Hamidur Rahman, designed the Central Shaheed Minar, which commemorates the 1952 Language Movement, on Dhaka University campus.

More than 30 of her major sculptural pieces are housed in Bangladesh National Museum, Dhaka, while some of her latter-day works can be viewed at the Novera Ahmed Museum, founded in 2018 by her husband in the small town of La Roche-Guyon outside of Paris, France.

She received Ekushey Padak in 1997. Novera Ahmed passed away on May 6, 2015.