EVENING SALE | LIVE, NEW DELHI (8 SEPTEMBER 2016)

Saffronart | Evening Sale

S H RAZA

(1922 ‒ 2016)

Untitled (Village)

Signed and dated ‘RAZA ‘56’ (upper right)

1956

Oil on paper

21 x 24.75 in (53.5 x 63 cm)

Rs 80,00,000 ‒ 1,20,00,000

$ 121,215 ‒ 181,820

PROVENANCE:

Private Collection, France

Private Family Collection, Delhi

In 1950, Raza moved to France with fellow Bombay Progressive Akbar Padamsee, and

began studying at the École des Beaux Arts in Paris the following year. This move brought

about a change in both his mediumand subject matter. Beginning to paint with oils instead

of gouache and tempera, “He moved out to the countryside; to Cezanne’s Provence... and

to the Maritime Alps where the French landscape with its trees, mountains, villages, and

churches became his staple diet.” (Yashodhara Dalmia,

The Making of Modern Indian Art:

The Progressives

, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2001, pp. 151-152) As suggested by

Cartier-Bresson, Raza had embarked on a search for structure in his art.

The present lot was painted in 1956, the same year in which the artist won France’s

renowned Prix de la Critique award. It displays the contours and construction of one of

the many hamlets in the French countryside that Raza came across on his travels through

rural France. Many of Raza’s works during this time were characterised by bright colour

palettes. With its houses and churches almost toppling over each other on the hillside,

this canvas also foreshadows subsequent developments in the artist’s oeuvre, where

colour and mood began to edge structure out of the frame.

Sunflower field in Lourmarin, Provence, France