Important Notice

Lot 65

 

Quick Zoom

“France gave me several acquisitions. First of all, “le sens plastique”, by which I mean a certain understanding of the vital elements in painting. Second, a measure of clear thinking and rationality. The third, which follows from this proposition, is a sense of order and sense of savoir vivre: the ability to perceive and to follow a certain discerning quality in life.” - S H RAZA

In September 1950, S H Raza embarked on a journey... “France gave me several acquisitions. First of all, “le sens plastique”, by which I mean a certain understanding of the vital elements in painting. Second, a measure of clear thinking and rationality. The third, which follows from this proposition, is a sense of order and sense of savoir vivre: the ability to perceive and to follow a certain discerning quality in life.” - S H RAZA

In September 1950, S H Raza embarked on a journey from India to France-one that would influence his life and career for decades to come. His initial years in France, though challenging, were formative. Critic Rudolf von Leyden, who had been closely associated with the artist since the 1940s, observed, “He came in contact for the first time with a world in which art was taken entirely seriously and definitely formed part of the life which surrounded it.” (Rudolf von Leyden, Raza, Bombay: Sadanga Publications, 1959, p. 4) Raza enrolled at the Ecole des Beaux Arts under painter Edmond Heuze in 1951, but rather than his formal training, it was the vibrant atmosphere of Paris-its museums, galleries, and rich cultural landscape-that proved to be the true catalyst for his artistic evolution.

This was a rich period of exploration for Raza as he fully immersed himself in French culture. He frequented museums such as the Jeu de Paume, Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, the Louvre, and the Musée Guimet, where he was captivated by the works of Van Gogh, Gauguin, and Cézanne. “Happily, next to Van Gogh were paintings by Cézanne which restored me to tranquility with their straight lines, built architecturally, with colour orchestration. I realised that this was the construction about which Henri Cartier-Bresson had spoken to me,” wrote the artist referencing a pivotal conversation with Bresson in Kashmir in 1948. (Artist quoted in Geeti Sen, “La Forge: The Furnace,” Bindu: Space and Time in Raza’s Vision, New Delhi: Media Transasia Limited, 1997, p. 54) He also travelled extensively across France, Spain, and Italy which furthered his appreciation of Renaissance and European art, and influenced the use of light, colour and structure in his own work at the time.

Following a group show with F N Souza and Akbar Padamsee at Galerie Saint-Placide in 1952 and another at Galerie Creuz in 1953, Raza’s art gained the attention of many important critics including Jacques Lassaigne, the then Director of the National Museum of Modern Art in Paris. In 1955, Galerie Lara Vincy offered him a contract to acquire his paintings against a monthly payment, further advancing his career in a competitive market. The present lot was painted the following year in 1956, at a pivotal moment in Raza’s artistic journey when he became the first non-French artist to win the renowned Prix de la Critique award and gained widespread recognition internationally.

Raza’s works from the 1950s and 1960s reflect his deep engagement with the French countryside during this time. This painting, a nocturnal scene, captures the charming architecture of the villages in Southern France, which he frequently visited, later acquiring a home in Gorbio in the Maritime Alps. “For many years, my main theme was the French landscape wherein trees and mountains, villages and churches, became important motifs. They served as a pretext to construct; the aim was to ‘build a picture’,” he explained. (Artist quoted in Sen, p. 56) The work represents an important transitional phase in Raza’s art. While the clusters of homes remain recognisable, the expressive use of colour and tactile application of paint takes precedence over formal structure-techniques that foreshadow his move towards greater gestural abstraction in the following decade. He also moved from gouache to oil during this time. Emphasising the significance of this change in medium, von Leyden wrote, “The change of medium and manner were not merely technical but signified a fundamental change of attitude. The scholar, who had measured and calculated, burst through the confines of a limited understanding of colour and space-created-by-colour into a sphere of full realisation. The transformation created such passion that one could best describe this age of Raza as the age of the Lover. This triumphant handling of paint, this living in paint can only be understood as an act of love.” (von Leyden, p. 19)

The juxtaposition of fiery flashes of orange and yellow against inky Prussian blue and black hint at Raza’s rootedness in India. They recall the bright colours of Indian miniature paintings, but perhaps more significantly, they could have been drawn from his recollections of the changing appearance of the Indian forests he saw during his childhood in Madhya Pradesh. Art historian Yashodhara Dalmia remarks, “The nights haunted him, so did the mornings, as the germinating world of forests and rivers, which had driven the restless child away from his studies, comes alive in these paintings…The stillness of the night with its eerie sounds and shapes would reverberate for the young boy in the darkness. In the daytime, the enthralling spectacle of the village with its diversity and colours would weave a spell on him [...] we see the emergence of brilliant colours and shapes from the enveloping sombre tones where the two are juxtaposed and interconnected implicating a perpetual coexistence of dualities. This wholly contained unity of diametric opposites serves to create the spellbinding effect of the works. And the bewitching dualities of light and darkness, epiphany and despair, stillness and movement would mark the artist’s oeuvre in the ensuing years.” (Yashodhara Dalmia, “The Burning Landscape”, Sayed Haider Raza, Noida: Harper Collins, 2021, pp. 78-79)

Read More
Artist Profile
Other works of this artist in: this auction  |  entire site