Important Notice

The present lot is an important work in Raza's oeuvre, representing a shift in style, medium and subject that ushered in a new inventive painting phase in his career. At the heart of Raza's art is the celebration of nature, which manifests throughout - from his early expressionist watercolour landscapes from the 1940s, the Cubist compositions during his time in Paris, to his later abstract works characterised by the fusion of geometric forms... The present lot is an important work in Raza's oeuvre, representing a shift in style, medium and subject that ushered in a new inventive painting phase in his career. At the heart of Raza's art is the celebration of nature, which manifests throughout - from his early expressionist watercolour landscapes from the 1940s, the Cubist compositions during his time in Paris, to his later abstract works characterised by the fusion of geometric forms with principles of spirituality.

Born in 1922, Raza spent his childhood in the Mandala district of Madhya Pradesh surrounded by dark forests and lush landscapes. This early experience of nature became a lifelong source of inspiration for Raza, and he would revisit these memories on canvas years later. His love of art brought him to Bombay where he enrolled at the Sir J J School of Arts, earning his diploma in 1947. At the same time, he worked at a blockmaker's design studio in downtown Bombay, which overlooked one of the busiest streets in the city. His watercolour cityscapes from this vantage point attracted the attention of fellow artists F N Souza and M F Husain - with whom he cofounded the Progressive Artists' Group - and critics such as Rudy von Leyden, Walter Langhammer and Emmanuel Schlesinger - whose presence, patronage and influence was crucial in the burgeoning art world of then Bombay.

In 1948, Raza travelled to Kashmir, a place which impressed him greatly, and inspired him to paint with a renewed passion and intensity. That year was the first turning point in Raza's life. One of his landscapes of the Kashmir Valley won him the gold medal from the Bombay Arts Society. In the same year, Raza also met the renowned French photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson, who advised him to study the works of Paul Cezanne to understand structure in painting. Raza then travelled to Paris on a government scholarship, and spent the next few years honing his craft at the Ecole de Paris. This move to France ushered in the next phase of Raza's career.

Inspired by the French landscape and art scene, including the paintings of Cezanne, Raza's works from the 1950s demonstrate a Cubist approach, "informed by a sense of order and proportion in form and structure." (Artist quoted in Geeti Sen, Bindu: Space and Time in Raza's Vision, New Delhi: Media Transasia Ltd., 1997, p. 57) He exhibited in many group and solo shows in Paris, and his works sold and became part of important collections. Raza soon gained widespread recognition in Europe as well as India. He married the artist Janine Mongillat in 1959, and the couple visited India the same year for an exhibition of Raza's works organised by the artist and gallery owner Bal Chhabda at Gallery 59 in Mumbai. Following this show, Raza returned to India several times, travelling to his native village - which would inspire the bindu motif in later works. These visits to places new and old inspired a new phase that drew from the emotional content of his journeys. "Raza was getting himself away from the need to paint what he saw, he was drawn more to paint what he recalled... It was not romantic nostalgia but Raza was torn between two worlds: the tumultuous present, the tranquil past. Beauty and fear coming together again as in the beginning of his life." (Ashok Vajpeyi ed., A Life in Art: S H Raza, New Delhi: Art Alive Gallery, 2007, p. 80)

By 1970, Raza's style had become more fluid as compared to works created in the previous decade, underscored by a deeper, more contrasting palette. The American Abstract Expressionist movement had taken hold over the Parisian art scene, and Raza saw greater freedom in this particular form of expression. He gradually abandoned all figuration and the carefully constructed compositions of the 1950s, and moved towards the freer forms of gestural abstraction. "Raza's canvases from this period were emotional essays, full of colour and vibrant movement. ... colours were not being used as merely formal elements they were emotionally charged. Their movements or consonances on the canvases seemed more and more to be provoked by emotions, reflecting or embodying emotive content. The earlier objectivity, or perhaps the distance started getting replaced or at least modified by an emergent subjectivity colours started to take the light load of emotions more than ever before." (Vajpeyi, p. 78)

His paintings from the late 1960s gave way to a transfigured nature, where Raza - a master colourist - used light, shadow, and blazing colour to portray the world of his childhood. The role of memory and his early experiences in India now began to increasingly manifest in his work, which was poised between his past and present. "From the 1960s and early 70s, when he was nearing fifty, Raza's works are impregnated with a sense of double identity... His gestural treatment inducts the layering of raw emotions, expressed through colours and through images which seem ephemeral - as fleeting emanations of forms resurrected from the past. Memory plays a strange and fascinating role, in that it feeds on images of the past and intensifies the experience for us - all the more so if we are separated by time and place." (Sen, pp. 8788)

With its predominantly black colour palette punctuated by moments of bright colours, the present lot titled The Invisible Cross has associations with the dark nights and dense forests of Raza's hometown in Madhya Pradesh. The juxtaposition of dark and light is a recurring theme in the artist's works, and he often attempted to highlight the coexistence of the conflicting forces. "Daybreak brought back a sentiment of security and wellbeing. On market day, under the radiant sun, the village was a fairyland of colours. And then, the night again. Even today I find that these two aspects of my life dominate me and are an integral part of my paintings." (Artist quoted in Jacques Lassaigne, Raza Anthology 1980-90, Mumbai: Chemould Publications and Arts, 1991) Black held immense potential for Raza, being the colour from which all other colours emerge.

This abstract preoccupation with his Indian origins opened the gates to a whole new world of inspiration for Raza, and structure, geometry and cosmological symbolism - including the concept of the bindu - would become critical elements of his later work. The present lot represents a significant milestone in the artist's journey of self-discovery, as well as in his artistic path towards becoming one of India's best known Modernists.

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