A tribute to the legacy of S H Raza

Syed Haider Raza's passing away will only add to the far-reaching appeal of his work

As I write this, I have beside me a book in which a few artist friends have contributed samples of their work. It is open on a page that has Raza sa'ab's drawing made some months previously, a circle of coiled serpents in black and red that he titled Nagas. Elsewhere, in a book he signed a few years ago, he wrote in Hindi about the infinite possibilities of the bindu (bindu ki anant sambhavnain). In these instances as much as across the formidable body of work he created over a career stretching seven decades, if there is a quality that stands out - beyond the cliches of style and genre by which his art is defined - I would have to say that quality is elegance. Elegance in the way he lived, in the way he thought, in the manner in which he wrote, and in the way he painted. Beyond all the aphorisms of him being one of India's most expensive artists, the awards and accolades and noise, was an artist of unusual quietness, and to understand him is to understand that quietude.

Celebrity drowned his last years, the din of success and fiscal fortune that hovered around him, so no one thought much of his unusual dedication to the land of his birth and karma, even though he chose to live at a remove from it for 60 years. Or of his great regard for Gandhi, whom he first heard at a rally in Nagpur, and whose samadhi was always his first port of call and frequent destination when in India. If he spoke fluent French, he wrote beautiful letters to his peers in English, recited poetry in Urdu and spoke in chaste Hindi, this man who believed so much in the idea of India that he felt isolated because his brothers, sister and (first) wife chose to migrate to Pakistan while he opted to remain behind.

S H Raza’s painting Jala-Bindu, 1988

  It must have been a lonely period of struggle when he signed up for fellow artist F N Souza's Progressive Artists' Group, as much at odds with Souza's overpowering personality as can be imagined. For all Souza's anglophile ways, it was Raza who was more refined, besides being gentle, measured and respectful. That respect translated to the manner in which he created art, which, if it was not provocative like Souza's, was not provincial either. For he was certainly radical, paralleling European and American artists, and going on to win France's prized Prix de le Critique award that set his career firmly on its path there.

Raza sa'ab was not above the gratifications of a material life, but unlike any member of the Group with whom he is eponymously associated, he alone among them (save K H Ara, who helmed the Artists Aid Centre in Mumbai) set up a foundation that, every year, has given scholarships and awards to the next generation of artists and artistes across disciplines, creating a cycle of recognition and mentorship. Almost no one else I know continued to pay homage till the end to his teachers and his birthplace - Mandala, which he chose for his final rites - as Raza did, never failing to point to the influence his childhood teachers had on him.

God knows, he wasn't perfect, but his kindness and humility seeped into his art which, even when emphatic, or effervescent, suggests nature and nurture in a symbiotic relationship. Say this for him, Raza sa'ab liked collecting friends, and his home in Paris was open to artists, writers and students from India who'd drop in, whether expected or unannounced. He was responsible for guiding more young artists through Paris than any other senior I know.

Zameen painted in 1960

I often like to ask collectors, if it comes to choosing between an artist's friendship or his art, what would they prefer? In the case of Raza sa'ab, too many - and perhaps not entirely truthfully - have told me they would opt for his friendship which held a quality of meditative philosophy. Speaking for myself, I'd opt for his art any day - for man is but mortal but Raza sa'ab's art holds the ability to surprise us across generations.

When news came of Raza's sa'ab's death one wet Delhi morning last week, it wasn't a surprise for most of us who were aware of his ill health. He had been absent from his own birthday party in February, a gathering he had hosted since his return to India from France at the end of 2010, a few years after his artist wife Janine's demise. Paris, for all his success there, was a lonely place without her; they had no children; and help was easier to come by in India than in Europe. So he shifted bag and baggage (but very little art, which he left behind as a token of affection for his caregiver) to a soulless neighbourhood in Delhi.

He seemed, at first, somewhat lost, perhaps missing the French way of life as well as the comfort of his own studio and the objects he had collected. Eventually, he did put the pieces of his life together once more, the mitti from Mandala that he had carried with him to distant Paris, the Ganesh murti, the invocation of Gandhiji's bhajans. But his health was failing even as he bravely appeared at the Raza Foundation's many outings in a wheelchair, or agreed to paint for cameras, or gallantly held ladies' hands flirtatiously long, or nursed his sole glass of red wine that he continued to enjoy at sundown.

In these last, frail years, Raza sa'ab continued to paint, but it would be a pity if he was to be remembered for them. For this artist who began his career making water landscapes in Bombay, abstract landscapes in oil in Paris, before an epiphany caused him to forge a fresh direction with his tantra-inspired geometrical abstraction (such a banal term for such amazing experimentation) ought be memorialised for the vividness and confidence of works with which he won not just our hearts but those of his fellow Frenchmen as well as art lovers around the world. Knowing him, however little, was a pleasure, one to cherish beyond his own lifetime as he leaves behind a body of art that will forever imprint any telling, or collection, of 20th century modern art in India.