Creating an open circle

With SH Raza turning 92 last week, Vadehra Art Gallery celebrated the occasion with the release of two books — Raza: A Journey of the Master , which holds 100 large, high-quality prints of the artist’s important works and Raza: A Journey of the Master and Geysers — a collection of correspondence between Raza and fellow artists and friends such as Akbar Padamsee, Bal Chhabda, E Schlesinger, FN Souza, Gaintonde, Laxman Pai, MF Husain, Ram Kumar, RV Leyden, Tyeb Mehta and Walter Langhammar. Raza stands out from these contemporaries and those who were part of the Progressive Artists’ Group (PAG), because he was a guru to many artists, when they were young and struggling. His contemporaries have left behind their art, but Raza will leave behind a following.

 “I was a wide-eyed student, making my way to Paris for the first time in 1988, and (Syed Haider) Raza came to meet me at the train station. He need not have, because he was such a famous painter by then, but he mentored his protégés with that much care,” says Sujata Bajaj, an abstract painter and print-maker currently dividing her time between Paris and Stockholm. Her work evokes the spirituality of India through collages of Devnagri text, vibrant colours and sweeping brushstrokes. Raza persuaded Bajaj to come to Paris, after he saw her solo exhibition in 1980, to study at his alma- mater the Ecole nationale superieure des Beaux-Arts. “I was never directly ‘influenced’ by Raza but we both search for the quintessentially Indian in our art, even while living abroad for a good part of our lives,” says Bajaj, whose work draws from but doesn’t copy from her mentors.

She, along with Indore-based artist Akhilesh Verma and MP-born artist Manish Pushkale, are Raza’s closest protégés. The work of others like Sanju Jain, Rafique Shah, Saba Hassan and Bani Pershad also bear the Raza stamp through their love for abstraction and spirituality. Raza always desired that part of his income go towards the promotion and support of younger artists in India and this generosity resulted in the Raza Foundation, a private non-profit trust founded in 2005.

 Raza is one of the last living painters from the PAG formed in 1947. The group gave direction to the Indian modern art movement through its manifesto that decried revival and nostalgia for the past and looked instead to international Modernism, while staying true to its Indian roots. Of the PAG, Raza is unique. He is known for making cash registers ring — his painting  Saurashtra  sold for ₹16 crore at Christie’s in 2010 — and for nurturing many emerging painters.  

Though his beginnings were in a small village in MP, Raza settled in Paris after marrying French painter Janine Mongillat. But he returned to his motherland in 2002, when Janine passed away. Now a large photograph of a younger Raza next to Janine smiles at guests in his Delhi house. It is one of the few things he brought back to remind him of life in Paris. “One must return to the mother, the soil on which one was born, my punaraagman , (homecoming) is made complete by the presence of old friends,” he says.  

Coming home for Raza has meant that many of his ‘disciples’ can rally around the artist in times of need. Pushkale, who continues to uphold the Raza legacy, lives a stone’s throw from Raza’s home. “I live away from my parents who are in my hometown in Bhopal. But I am glad that I live near my guru ,” says Pushkale who met Raza in 1998, although he first saw his work as a 10-year-old at Bharat Bhavan, Bhopal, in 1983. “Raza is different from other artists because not only does he paint with depth, dignity and dedication, but he inspires others to do so as well. He teaches you to be a true rasik , appreciating art in its totality,” says Pushkale whose subdued palette, subtle shapes and calming gentle strokes are completely different from the vibrant palette and geometrical forms of his guru. For Pushkale,  Raza’s influence lies not in his work but in his thoughts. “I would place him in the same league as Rabindranath Tagore, who founded Santiniketan in Kolkata and NS Bendre who set the inaugural stone in MSU Baroda. The difference is that the Raza Foundation is an open circle. It is not a pedagogical institute but a  gharana ,” he says. Pushkale is currently overseeing the production of a portfolio of limited edition prints that will accompany Raza’s next big exhibition at London’s Grosvenor Gallery, later this year.  

 Sanju Jain reiterates that Raza knows how to identify and nurture talent. She found direction in her work, after meeting Raza in 1997 at Bharat Bhavan. “He told me that I had a ‘ beej ’ (seed) of creativity that would flower into a fine tree if it had the right encouragement,” Jain says.  Raza’s Delhi duplex, consisting of his archive, studio and home, is a beautiful combination of air and light; Two helpers lift him onto a brown upholstered chair that is placed before a large canvas. His mobility has been affected by a nasty fall (in 2011) that damaged his hipbone. His sight is failing, his hands quiver with the effort and he stops for long intervals just to catch his breath after a violent coughing fit, however every day he uncaps the tubes of paints and guides the brush over the canvas — even if it is just for a few hours. “It’s what I know... like breathing and eating,” he says. His solo exhibition Parikrama: Around Gandhi , runs till March 26 at the Vadehra Art Gallery, in New Delhi.

(Georgina Maddox is a Delhi-based art writer)

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