Osian's Auction Catalogue Indian Modern Contemporary Fine Arts | October 2018

88 OSIAN’s – Connoisseurs of Art S. H. Raza b. 22 February 1922 – d. 23 July 2016 Untitled Oil on canvas, 1961 25.5 x 21.2 in (64.8 x 53.8 cm) S/d ‘RAZA 61’ l.r. ` 1,000,000 – 1,500,000 $ 13,890 – 20,830 Provenance Acquired by the present Delhi-based owner from Limoges Encheres (& Nicolas Constanty), French Auction on 1st December 2012 (Lot 99). 34 In the ‘sixties and ‘seventies visits to India re-sensitised 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. Detailed Artist Biography osianama.com/artists/s-h-raza