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Sayed-Haider Raza

"My inspiration comes to me through the thoughts of others, painters or musicians, such that Ustad said: look with your ears and listen with your eyes."

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Notes of biography

The painter Sayed-Haider Raza was born in Barbaria, Madhya Prudesh in India in 1922. He spent his childhood with his father, a forestry worker in the still virgin forests of central India. It is this environment that undoubtedly forms the ‘archives’ of his memory and permits him to develop a strong and intuitive sensibility. After his training at the School of Fine Arts in Nagpur in 1939, he intregrates in1943, into the Sir JJ School of Art in Bombay where he received his diploma.
In Bombay, the young artist is one of the founders of the ‘Progressive Artists Group’. Raza obtains a grant from the Indian government and France allows him to come study at the Beaux-Arts School of Paris in 1950 until 1953. In 1956 he wins the very coveted ‘Prix de la Critique’ (Critics Prize) awarded by 14 Parisian art critics. Very early on Raza participates in numerous group exhibitions (Salon de Mai, Biennale de Sao Paulo, Salon Comparaisons in Paris, etc. ). He equally participates over the course of time in events exclusively dedicated to contemporary Indian art (Washington, London, Oxford, Paris, New York, etc.). From 1959, the artist shows his work in solo exhibitions, which the first in a long list is in Paris at the Lara Vincy Gallery.
Abstract landscape artist in his first period, he evolves little by little towards abstract-geometric painting, then towards painting that is above all, spiritual. Raza regularly returns to India where he is able to remain in contact with his traditional culture that inspires all his work. Having integrated partly into the western adventure of art, he is more and more swept away by the mandala (sacred circle) and the bindu (the primordial point, the seed of the origin of life) that each person con find inside himself. Raza transcribes again his own vision of the perceptible and the imperceptible and his art includes primordial elements: earth, water, fire.
The artist received all the honors and the highest distinction of his country. Sayed-Haider Raza lived and worked between Paris and Gorbio, a little village in the countryside of Nice. He returns in India in 2010. The artist died in Delhi in July, 2016, he was 94 years old.

Artists on display

The art and the artists display: proclamations, galleries, museums, personal or collective exhibitions. On walls or in shop windows, wise or rebels, posters warn, argue, show. Some were specially conceived by an artist for such or such event, other, colder, have only the letter.

Some were created in lithographic technic, most are simple offset reproductions. They are many those who like collecting these rectangles of paper, monochrome or in games of colours, in matt paper or brilliant, with many words or almost dumb.

We are happy also to be able to greet, by this pages, mythical galleries as those of Denise René, Louis Carré, Claude Bernard, Berheim Jeune, Maeght, Pierre Loeb and others.

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Complete work(s)

Complete work(s)
Non réalisé à ce jour. All the complete works

Bibliographic track and more

To read about the artist :
  • « Bindu : Space and time in Raza's vision », G. Sen, Media Transasia, 1997
  • « Raza », Ashok Vajpeyi, Ravi Kumar Publisher, Paris, 2002
  • « Raza, an Introduction to his painting », M. Imbert, Rainbow Publishers, 2003
  • « Mandalas », O. Germain-Thomas, Ed. Albin Michel, Paris, 2004
  • « Passion: Life and art of Raza », A. Vajpeyi, Ed. Rajkamal Books, N.Delhi, 2005
  • « A life in art: S.-H. Raza », Ashok Vajpeyi, Ed. Art Alive Gallery, 2007
  • « Raza selected works », A. Vajpeyi, National Gal. of Modern Art, N. Dehli, 2007
  • « Raza », Alain Bonfand, Les Editions de la Différence, Paris, 2008
  • « Raza's Bindu », R. khoda et V. Pei, coll. Art exploration, 2016
To read from the artist :
  • « Raza by Raza », Faridabad, Hry, India, 2006
  • « My Dear : Letters between S.H. Raza and K. Khanna », Ed. Vadehra Art Gallery, 2013
Website :
No website dedicated to the artist.

More :


Art movements

+ NEW REALITIES / 1946-1956 / Etienne Béothy, Marcelle Cahn, etc.
+ SINGULAR ARTISTS / XXème siècle /
All art movements

See & discover

Beyond works currently in stock, it seemed to me useful to combine business with pleasure by letting you discover others works by artists in my gallery. These artworks, now sold or removed from our website, have been in our stock in the past.

These pages will undoubtedly make it possible for some of you to associate an image with its title or the other way round, for others it will be a good time to discover more on such and such artist. For the sake of confidentiality – the pieces being no longer available – we won't display neither their numbering or their price. For whatever reason, make sure to visit this amazing art database with to date 6441 online works just for your pleasure! Michelle Champetier

See & discover