Sayed Haider RAZA (1922-2016) - Lot 133

Sayed Haider RAZA (1922-2016) Church, 1956 Oil on wood panel Signed "RAZA" and dated 1956 top left Inscribed "Galerie Lara Vincy 47 rue de Seine Paris". 80 x 64 cm (view) Framed and isorel panel on back PROVENANCE Galerie Lara Vincy 47 rue de Seine Paris. Paris private collection, from the collection of Mr. Jacques Lassaigne, former chief curator of the Musée d'art moderne de la ville de Paris. This work will be included in SH RAZA, Catalogue Raisonné, Early Works (1940 - 1957) by Anne Macklin on behalf of the Raza Foundation, New Delhi. The condition report is available on request from the following email address: contact@neo-encheres.com Please note that live bidding will be disabled for this lot. Please contact the auction house to register for this lot. NOTICE Sayed Haider Raza (1922-2016), a major figure of Indian pictorial modernity, reached a decisive turning point in his career around 1956. Having moved to Paris in 1950 to study at the École nationale supérieure des beaux-arts, he deepened his plastic research under the influence of the post-impressionist masters, in particular Cézanne, whose approach to formal structure nourished his experiments. In 1956, he won the Prix de la Critique in Paris, a first for a non-French artist. This recognition consecrated the originality of his plastic language: architectural compositions, vibrant chromaticism, dynamic tensions between geometric forms and emotional vibrations. Works such as Village au soleil (1956) bear witness to this synthesis of Western formal rigor and Indian memory. At this time, Raza was not isolated. He remained in intellectual and artistic dialogue with his former companions from Bombay's Progressive Artists' Group - Francis Newton Souza, Maqbool Fida Husain, Krishen Khanna, Akbar Padamsee and Ram Kumar - who, like him, questioned India's pictorial identity in a globalized world. The period around 1956 is therefore crucial: it ushers in Raza's artistic maturity, based on a balance between assimilated European influences and Indian spiritual roots - a balance he would continue to deepen for the rest of his life.