Important Notice

Les Paves Noirs (1962)

Syed Haider Raza was already one of the most important artists of India's modern movement by the time he moved to Paris in 1950. Between 1954 and 1965 he travelled extensively, visiting Carcassonne in Central France and Provence in the south, and much of what he observed during his travels is revealed in his art. French landscapes dominated Raza's paintings during this period.

The present... Les Paves Noirs (1962)

Syed Haider Raza was already one of the most important artists of India's modern movement by the time he moved to Paris in 1950. Between 1954 and 1965 he travelled extensively, visiting Carcassonne in Central France and Provence in the south, and much of what he observed during his travels is revealed in his art. French landscapes dominated Raza's paintings during this period.

The present lot, Les Paves Noirs, painted in 1962, belongs to this period. Although literally translated it means 'Black Cobblestones', there are no identifiable cobblestones, and the emphasis is on form and colour. "Raza's art never states, it enacts: it was always evocation and escalation." (Ashok Vajpeyi, A Life in Art: S. H. Raza, Art Alive Gallery, New Delhi, 2007, p.74)

In the art magazine Thought, Richard Bartholomew writes: "Colour is the legend to each of these landscapes, because in each painting the flesh and form of colour are organic to the skeletal structure, we see the anatomy but not the division of the drawing. Therefore, there is no seductive line to give you the sense of the thing... There is hardly a patch of colour that is passive." (Richard Bartholomew, "Paintings by S.H. Raza", The Art Critic, Bart, India, 2012, p.339)

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