Sayed Haider Raza (1922 –2016) was an Indian painter who lived and worked in France since 1950, while maintaining strong ties with India. He was a renowned Indian artist. He was awarded the Padma Shri and Fellowship of the Lalit Kala Academi in 1981, Padma Bhushan in 2007, and Padma Vibhushan in 2013. He was conferred with the Commandeur de la Legion d'honneur (Legion of Honour) on 14 July 2015.
After high school, he studied further at the Nagpur School of Art, Nagpur, followed by Sir J. J. School of Art, Bombay, before moving to France in 1950 to study at the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts (ENSB-A), Paris on a Government of France scholarship. After his studies, he travelled across Europe, and continued to live and exhibit his work in Paris. He was later awarded the Prix de la critique in Paris in 1956, becoming the first non-French artist to receive the honour.
Sayed Haider Raza, had his first solo show when he was 24 at Bombay Art Society Salon, and was awarded the Silver Medal of the society.
His work evolved from painting expressionistic landscapes to abstract ones. From his fluent water colours of landscapes and townscapes executed in the early 1940s, he moved toward a more expressive language, painting landscapes of the mind.
Raza carefully crafted his career to become an inspiration to two generations of artists. The year of 1947 proved to be a very important year for him. First, his mother died. Then, he co-founded the revolutionary Bombay Progressive Artists' Group (PAG) (1947–1956). This group set out to break free from the influences of European realism in Indian art and bring Indian inner vision (Antar gyan) into the art. The group had its first show in 1948. A revolutionary amount of art was created by the people in this group from 1940 to 1990.
Once in France, he continued to experiment with currents of Western Modernism, moving from Expressionist modes towards greater abstraction and eventually incorporating elements of Tantrism from Indian scriptures. Whereas his fellow contemporaries dealt with more figural subjects, Raza chose to focus on landscapes in the 1940s and 50s, inspired in part by a move to France. In 1956, he was awarded the prestigious Prix de la Critique, this was a monumental award to the art scene in India.
In 1962, he became a visiting lecturer at the University of California in Berkeley, USA. Raza was initially enamored of the bucolic countryside of rural France. Eglise is part of a series which captures the rolling terrain and quaint village architecture of this region. Showing a tumultuous church engulfed by an inky blue night sky, Raza uses gestural brushstrokes and a heavily impasto-ed application of paint, stylistic devices which hint at his later 1970s abstractions.
By the 1970s Raza had grown increasingly unhappy and restless with his own work and wanted to find a new direction and deeper authenticity in his work, and move away from what he called the 'plastic art'. His trips to India, especially to caves of Ajanta - Ellora, followed by those to Varanasi, Gujarat and Rajasthan, made him realize his role and study Indian culture more closely, the result was "Bindu", which signified his rebirth as a painter.
After the introduction of "Bindu" (a point or the source of energy), he added newer dimensions to his thematic oeuvre in the following decades, with the inclusion of themes around the Tribhuj (Triangle), which bolstered Indian concepts of space and time, as well as that of "prakriti-purusha" (the female and the male energy), his transformation from an expressionist to a master of abstraction and profundity, was complete. His multiple works of art with the bindu is what truly tied him to his Indian roots and culture. This art created a sense of pride for his culture. The bindu is now widely regarded as a trademark for Raza and he said in 2010 that "It's the centre of my life"
Raza abandoned the expressionistic landscape for a geometric abstraction and the "Bindu". Raza perceived the Bindu as the center of creation and existence progressing towards forms and color as well as energy, sound, space and time.
His work took another leap in 2000, when he began to express his increasingly deepened insights and thoughts on Indian spiritual, and created works around the Kundalini, Nagas and the Mahabharat.
In order to promote art among young Indians, S. H. Raza had founded Raza Foundation here in India. The foundation continues to work on his mission and gives away an award in his name to encourage budding Indian artists. This award function is held every year. In order to save, promote and most importantly protect his works, a committee under his name was started in Paris after he passed away. The committee is open to joining hands with other similar organizations in order to protect his works. Though he came up with a number of techniques during his lifetime, his greatest legacy would be that of his inclusion of Indian scientific concepts into the world of modern art.
© 2020. All content on this blog is protected by international copyright laws All images are copyrighted © by S.H. Raza or assignee. Apart from fair dealing for the purpose of private study, research, criticism or review as permitted under the Copyright Act, the use of any image from this site is prohibited unless prior written permission is obtained. All images used for illustrative purposes only
 |
| Clocher du Village 1958 |
 |
| Untitled 1958 |
 |
| Village en Fête 1964 |
 |
| La Mer 1975 |
 |
| Saurashtra 1983 |
 |
| Bindu 1992 |
 |
| Bindu project 1992 |
 |
| Universe 1993 |
 |
| Spandan 1997 |
 |
| Prakriti 2000 |
 |
| Ankuran 2005 |
 |
| Kundalini 2006 |
 |
| La Terre 2006 |
 |
| Prem 2006 |
 |
| Rasa 2006 |
 |
| Shanti Bindu 2006 |
 |
| Bindu 2006 |
 |
| Duality 2006 |
 |
| Encounter 2006 |
 |
| Fire 2006 |
 |
| Prakriti 2006 |
 |
| Aavartan 2007 |
 |
| Bindu 2007 |
 |
| Bindu Radiation 2007 |
 |
| Panchtatva 2007 |
 |
| Sapta Ras 2007 |
 |
| Surya And Naga 2007 |
 |
| Untitled 2007 |
 |
| Untitled 2007 |
 |
| Untitled 2007 |
 |
| Asto Maa... 2008 |
 |
| Diagonales 2008 |
 |
| L'hiver 2012 |
 |
| Panth 2013 |
 |
| Bindu Panch Tatava 2014 |
 |
| Panchtatva 2015 |
 |
| Vatayan 2016 |
No comments:
Post a Comment