"[3] Novera Ahmed was born on 29 March 1939, in Sundarbans in the then Bengal Presidency, British India, whilst her family were there for a crocodile hunt.

In 1955 she was awarded a diploma in design in the modeling and sculpture course from Camberwell College of Arts in London.

[4] At Camberwell, she studied under the British sculptor Jacob Epstein and Karel Vogel of Czechoslovakia.

[3] Ahmed jointly worked with Hamidur Rahman on the original design of the Shaheed Minar, Dhaka.

She began spray paintings, using plane crash remains from the US army in the Vietnam War (1964–1969).

[12] In August 2017, the ministry of cultural affairs of the government of Bangladesh announced a plan to purchase ten paintings by Ahmed for $47,000.

[9] On 29 March 2019, search engine Google commemorated Ahmed with a Doodle on her 80th birth anniversary.