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Sayed Haider Raza was born in Madhya Pradesh and studied painting at the Nagpur School of Art and the Sir J.J.School of Art. A founder member of the Progressive Artists' Group Raza participated actively in the Group's activities, stimulated may discussions in the early struggle to develop a modernist language and presented several exhibitions of his paintings in India before leaving for France on a French Government scholarship in 1950. In Paris he studied painting at the Ecole Nationale des Beaux-Arts from 1950 to 1953.
Awarded the Prix de la Critique in Paris in 1956, Raza has held numerous exhibitions both in India and abroad. He has participated in the Venice, Sao Paulo and Menton Biennales and has held retrospective shows the most recent being in 1997 in Mumbai, Bhopal and New Delhi The University of California invited him as a visiting lecturer at the art department of Berkeley in 1962.
A strong colourist Raza's painting resonate the passionate hot colours of India with all their symbolic, emotive value. While drawing from memories of childhood spent in the forests he has also been inspired by Indian metaphysical thought.
Sayed Haider Raza calls his work a "result of two parallel enquiries." Firstly, it is aimed at a "pure plastic order" and secondly, it concerns the theme of nature. Both converge into a single point and become inseparable - the "Bindu" (the dot or the epicentre). Raza's work has formalism, for which he trained in France, as well as the mystic aspects of Hindu philosophy.
He was awarded the Padma Shri by the President of India in 1981 and was elected Fellow of the Lalit Kala Akademi, New Delhi in 1983
VAG in collaboration with National Gallery of Modern Art organized Raza’s retrospective in 1997.
S H Raza’s work is in the collections of the Musee National d’Art Moderne, Paris; Musee d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris; Musee de Grenoble; Musee de Menton; Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris; Baroda Museum, India; Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Mumbai; Jehangir Nicholson Museum, Mumbai; National Gallery of Modern Art, New Delhi; Roopankar: Museum of Fine Arts, Bhopal; Fukuoka Art Museum, Japan; Asia Society, New York and the Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, Massachusetts.
The artist lives and works in Paris and in Gorbio in south France.
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