S.H Raza

“My work is my own inner experience and involvement with the mysteries of nature and form, which is expressed in colour, line, space, and light”

S.H Raza (1922-2016) was an Indian modern artist who truly embodied his art with Indian spiritual attributes, cosmology, and symbolism. Though he lived and worked in France till 1950, Raza had never cut ties with his Indian roots. This strong bond to his motherland has transpired onto some of his notable paintings. 

S.H Raza or Syed Haider Raza was born in Madhya Pradesh, India. Having a keen interest in art from a young age, Raza pursued his artistic ability by joining the Sir J.J School of Art in 1943. In 1950, he left India for Paris to further train at Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts. In the 1970s,  Raza moved back to India. Having found his artworks lacking perspective, he termed them as “plastic art”. On his trips to Ajanta and Ellora caves as well as various other places in India, he discovered and realised the Indian concept of space and time. This extensive understanding of existence created by a paradox of space, time, and energy delivered his art a new dimension. 

Later, Raza’s grasp of ancient Indian concepts introduced him to the ideology of “Bindu”. S.H Raza’s geometric abstracts consist of inverted triangles, straight angles, circles, and sharp lines with “Bindu” as the focal point. He expresses the elements of nature like water, fire, earth, and space by using striking and radiant colours. 

Having had expressed mainly in oil and acrylic, Raza held many exhibitions both in India and in Paris to showcase his remarkable progressive career in art. Also, being one of the Progressives, today his paintings fetch the highest price in the Indian art market!