Acclaimed art director, painter Tarun Ghosh passes away at 73

He also served as a fine arts teacher for several years

National Film Award-winning art director and artist Tarun Ghosh has died of a cardiac arrest at the age of 73.

He passed away on Wednesday night, film director Animesh Aich told bdnews24.com, adding that the artist had also suffered from asthma.

He said Tarun's last rites were performed at the Posta crematorium in Old Dhaka’s Lalbagh on Thursday afternoon.

“When Tarun suddenly started having breathing issues, he was taken to Dhaka Medical College Hospital,” Animesh said.

Tarun was declared dead there.

After the death, his body was first taken to the National Museum in the morning.

Later, the body was moved to the Faculty of Fine Arts of Dhaka University, where his students, colleagues, friends, well-wishers and followers paid their tributes.

The corpse was eventually taken to the Central Shaheed Minar for a final round of homage.

Born in Rajbari in 1953, Tarun enrolled as one of the first students in the College of Arts (now the Faculty of Arts, Dhaka University) from where he graduated in 1977.

He secured his Master’s degree from MS University in Baroda, India, in 1986.

Before that he had joined as a founding teacher at Rajshahi University’s Fine Arts Department in 1977.

Tarun joined the National Museum in 1989. After serving for a long time, he retired as a “keeper” in 2012.

Other than painting, he made significant contributions to film art direction and won the National Film Award for the movie “Kittonkhola” (2000).

He also worked as an art director in several films including “Matir Moina” and “Chandrabati Katha” alongside the short film “Noroshundor”.

Tarun also served as art director in the film “Sakhi Rangamala”, which is awaiting its release.

His “Behula” painting series was particularly praised and earned him the Asian Art Award.