Syed Haider Raza(1922-2016)

Art & Deal Correspondent

Syed Haider, legend of modern Indian art breathed his last in Delhi on 23rd July, 2016. He was 94 and had been working up to his last days till his body gave way and finally succumbed.

Raza was born in a small village in Madhya Pradesh in 1922. He received his formal training in painting at the Nagpur School of Art, Nagpur and then the Sir J. J. School of Art, Mumbai. During his stay at the Sir J.J. School, the renowned Progressive Artists Group was formed of which Raza was a founder member along with along with other veterans like K.H. Ara and F.N. Souza.

He then went on to Paris where he stayed for several decades of his life, having moved there at the early age of 28. He initially chose the city because he wanted to see the paintings of Paul Cézanne. He pursued his studies at the Ecole Nationale des Beaux-Arts of Paris after receiving a French Government Scholarship in 1950. Raza was awarded the Prix de la Critique in Paris in 1956. In 1962 he served as a visiting lecturer at the University of California in Berkeley, USA. He has participated in numerous exhibitions, including the Sao Paulo Biennale in 1958, the Biennale de Menton, in France in 1966, 1968 and in 1978, and Contemporary Indian Painting, at the Royal Academy in London, in 1982.