India’s poster boy of modern art dies at 94
NEW DELHI: The last of a generation of doyens of Indian art, Sayed Haider Raza, 94, passed away in New Delhi on Saturday.
A founding member of the iconic Progressive Artists Group in 1947 – along with MF Husain, KH Ara, HA Gade, SK Bakre and Francis Newton Souza – Raza was perceived as one of the most important painters in the country.
In 2010, Saurashtra, one of Raza’s paintings, was sold for a staggering ₹16.42 crore at a Christie’s auction. The artist had been ailing for the last 45 days and was on life support at Max Hospital Saket, said a family friend. The last rites will be conducted in Mandala in Madhya Pradesh, according to his wishes.
Noted art critic S Kalidas says Raza Saheb’s commitment to his craft is the stuff of legend. “One of the grand old masters of Indian art, he was passionate about it. Well into his 90s, Raza Saheb continued to paint at his studio, even on a wheelchair,” he recalls.
“After his marriage to French artist and sculptor Janine Mongillat, he was staying in France for many decades, but Raza Saheb never really went away. He kept his ties with India intact,” adds Kalidas. Gallerist Arun Vadehra of Vadehra Art Gallery, which had been exhibiting his work since the 1970s and also hosted Nirantar, his last exhibition, says the bindu was the leitmotif of Raza’s paintings. “He believed that the bindu or the seed was the aarambh (beginning) of everything, the very basis of life. It was from the seed a tree or a flower or a plant evolves.”
With the credo that everything emanated from it, Raza Saab often described the bindu as: “The seed, the germ, the core, it gives birth to the fecundity of the world.”
Born in Madhya Pradesh, Raza began drawing early, at the age of twelve. He studied at the Nagpur School of Art (1939-43), followed by the JJ School of Art in Mumbai (1943-1947).
In 1950, he moved to Paris for higher studies and exhibited extensively in France, where he continued to live for more than six decades. Raza has left an enormous legacy behind, avers Krishen Khanna, 91, his friend and contemporary. His signature was to always look forward and keep evolving.