Sayed Haider Raza

After an early stint in Bombay in the 1940s, with the Progressive Artists’ Group, S. H. Raza moved to France, where he spent the next 60 years. This volume explores Raza’s artistic trajectory from the time of his arrival in Paris, as well as his contribution to the development of modernism in the Indian subcontinent.

Raza’s strong thrust towards non-figurative art, and subsequent influences from European and American modernism, combined with his memories and impressions of India, led him to a skillful negotiation between Indian spirituality and Western abstraction. Beginning with early works developed in India before 1947, the essays in this volume analyze Raza’s later abstraction processes and landscapes. An anthology of previously unpublished letters offer glimpses of the master at work, and a detailed chrono-biography situates him within the transcultural dynamics of the 1950s to the 1980s.

Accompanying the S.H. Raza exhibition at the Centre Pompidou in Paris in 2023, this monograph presents a compelling overview of Raza’s work and the highlights of his journey.

Published in association with the Raza Foundation, New Delhi and Centre Pompidou, Paris.

Yashodhara Dalmia is an independent art historian and curator based in New Delhi. Roobina Karode is Director and Chief Curator, Kiran Nadar Museum of Art. Ashvin E. Rajagopalan is an art historian and the Director of the Piramal Museum of Art, Mumbai. Homi K. Bhabha is the Anne F. Rothenberg Professor of the Humanities, Director of the Mahindra Humanities Centre, and Senior Advisor to the President and Provost at Harvard University. Gayatri Sinha is a critic, editor and curator and has curated many important shows and written extensively about modern and contemporary Indian art. Ashok Vajpeyi is a New Delhi-based Hindi poet-critic who has written poetry and criticism of literature, music and visual arts in many publications.