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Lot 85

 

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Following Raza’s exposure to the work of the New York School of painters and the Abstract Expressionism of artists like Sam Francis, Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko and Willem de Kooning on a teaching trip to the University of California, Berkeley, in 1962, the direction of his work changed dramatically. Using loose, gestural brushwork, an expressive palette, and acrylic as a medium, Raza sought to be less self-conscious and more fluid in his... Following Raza’s exposure to the work of the New York School of painters and the Abstract Expressionism of artists like Sam Francis, Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko and Willem de Kooning on a teaching trip to the University of California, Berkeley, in 1962, the direction of his work changed dramatically. Using loose, gestural brushwork, an expressive palette, and acrylic as a medium, Raza sought to be less self-conscious and more fluid in his painting, in an effort to communicate moods rather than images through his canvases.

As the artist explained, “Thereafter visual reality, the aim to construct a ‘tangible’ world receded. In its place there was a preoccupation with evoking the essence, the mood of places and of people” (as quoted in Geeti Sen, “The Seed and the Fruit: Metaphors in Raza’s Painting”, S.H. Raza, Saffronart and Berkeley Square Gallery exhibition catalogue, New York and London, 2005, p. 6).

In his paintings from the mid and late 1960s, ‘tangible’ nature thus gives way to a transfigured nature, where Raza, a master colourist, uses light, shadow, and blazing colour to express his commitment to the sentiment of the scene rather than its tangible elements. In these lavish evocations of emotion and atmosphere, of which the present lot is an unusually large example, the emphasis is thus placed on palette and brushstroke instead of formal structure and narrative. In this case, Raza offers his vivid response to a place possibly known as La Sambola; the autumnal colours perhaps foreshadowing his imminent return to the earthy hues of the Central Indian landscape in his work.

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