Raza: A Retrospective
Interacting with Raza is rarely just a discussion or conversation; it’s the process of creating a focal point. Much like the meditative nature of his recent work, one is intrinsically compelled to understand as he radiates outward, navigating through his artistic philosophy and its universality. Raza and his work promulgate an important duality: the viewer’s own introspection versus the act of viewing the perceived structure of his paintings. Few people have the ability to inspire at this level. This ability, developed over a 60-year career, is the focus of this exhibition and publication.
Raza’s oeuvre truly represents an immense body of work that has evolved from his early studies and apprenticeship in the 1940s to his present symbolic meditations. His art fuses his profound Indian sensibility with techniques and skills learned in Europe and America. That his work repudiates meta-categories like nation, religion, and race, and transcends chronology and geography, only adds to its cross-cultural appeal and underscores its relevance.
Though he embarked on his painterly career with representations of visualised or realistic landscapes in India and during his first few years in France, Raza quickly turned to a more intangible idiom. One where the communication of mood or emotion, inspired by a scene, became the artist’s central concern. Colour and form were used to express both the gentleness and ferocity of nature, whose omnipotence has inspired Raza since his childhood in the dense forests of Central India.
From the early 1960s, after a trip to the United States, Raza distanced himself from his 1950s architecture of impasto in oils. Instead, he focused on the freedom of stroke offered by the newly emerged acrylic medium. Inspired by American Abstract Expressionists, the artist turned to loose, gestural brushwork and a vivid, expressive palette to create and convey emotion. At the same time, travels to India reminded Raza of the colours and passion of his homeland, whether under the beating sun or in the darkness of the night. This influenced much of his work in the 1960s and 70s.
Raza believes he was reborn as a painter in the 1980s, when his deep engagement with the concept of the bindu began. The geometric symbolism that emerged from its ancient origins and the coded language of the cosmos within Indian philosophy became the cornerstone of Raza’s thought. Initially introduced to the bindu as a point of concentration, which subsumed all other thought, by one of his teachers in elementary school, Raza now returned to this black circle of concentrated energy as the source and end of all life in the universe. For Raza, the bindu is the core of the symbolic code that describes the cosmos, its dichotomies, and its supporting structures.
While rooted in Raza’s Indian heritage, his language transcends borders. As a result, his paintings and philosophy have resonated with some of the most discerning art collectors worldwide. Of India’s modern masters, Raza is one of the most distinguished, having won international critical acclaim throughout his career and drawing global attention to modern Indian art. One of the founders of the groundbreaking Progressive Artists’ Group in 1947, Raza remains a pioneer at eighty-five years old.
This major retrospective marks not only the artist’s 85th birthday but also an important step forward in Saffronart’s commitment to providing a comprehensive global platform for modern and contemporary Indian art. It underscores Berkeley Square Gallery’s sustained effort to create a strong platform for Indian art in Europe. This is the first comprehensive exhibition of Raza’s work in the United States, and it will be continued with shows in the United Kingdom and India. The retrospective will also be accompanied by a detailed monograph on the artist published by Saffronart. This illustrated volume will trace the development of Raza’s painterly career and provide a full-colour catalogue raisonne, the first of its kind, documenting several thousand of the artist’s known works.
The most important acknowledgement we would like to make is to Sayed Haider Raza, who has unfailingly supported the development of Indian art and its struggle to voice an expression on an international platform while retaining its cultural roots. We would like to express our gratitude to the many collectors of Raza’s work who have graciously agreed to lend their works to this documentary exhibition.