Osian's Auction Catalogue Indian Antiquities Modern Contemporary Fine Arts and Books | April 2017

61 S.H. Raza 1922-2016 Untitled Acrylic on canvas, 1973 S/d in English ‘RAZA ‘73’ l.l. Inscribed in English ‘RAZA 1973 46 x 38 Acrylique Surtoile 8F’ 17.7 x 14.2 in (45.0 x 36.0 cm) Provenance Previously sold by Pundole Art Gallery who bought it directly from the artist in 1990s INR 1,500,000 – 2,250,000 USD 22,390 – 33,580 ‘Raza always painted an imaginary world, traversed by tragic intensities, with his energies concentrated at the points where his coloured planes overlapped. In the thickness of his matter, a whole network of coloured veins circulated; flashing reds and yellows pierced deep blacks. Effects of tension and nervous agitation upset shadowy zones. The composition itself was affected by this, and in a given work, the compressed pulsations of the forms, the character of which could be defined as anguishing, were in opposition to immense, light and calm surfaces. Thus, ever faithful to his deep sentiments, Raza sought to free himself of the oppression of the night and to glorify the serenity rediscovered in the light of dawn.’ – Jacques Lassaigne rpt. in Raza Gallery Chemould 1975 ExC. ‘In the ‘sixties and ‘seventies, visits to India re-sensitized his perceptiveness for a final supreme and universal viewing of nature, not as appearance, not as spectacle but as an integrated force of life and cosmic growth reflected in every elementary particle and in every fibre of a human being. The five elements which in Hindu thought build this and other worlds – earth, jala – water, pawak – fire, gagan – sky and samara – ether and their correspondence, on the one hand, to areas of consciousness in the human mind and, on the other, to the colours yellow – padma, white – sulka, red – tejas, blue – nila and black – Krishna captured Raza’s imagination to the point of complete identification of himself with his painted work. Nature became to Raza something not to be observed or to be imagined but something to be experienced in the very act of putting paint on canvas. Painting acts itself out as a natural force, struggling in darkness, breaking into light, shivering in cold, burning in heat, trying to find form and yet dissolving into chaos.’ – Rudolf von Leyden rpt. in Raza Gorbio & Bombay 1978 ExC. 134 | Osian’s–Connoisseurs of Art