Sayed Haider Raza

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This comprehensive overview of S.H. Raza's life and work features over 250 pieces from his oeuvre, including previously unpublished letters and notebooks that provide insights into the artist's creative process. A detailed chrono-biography places Raza within the transcultural dynamics of the art world. After starting his career in Bombay in the 1940s with the Progressive Artists' Group, Raza moved to France, where he spent six decades. The volume examines his artistic journey from his arrival in Paris and his significant role in modernism's evolution in the Indian subcontinent. Raza's focus on non-figurative art, influenced by European and American modernism, intertwined with his Indian heritage, facilitated a unique blend of spirituality and abstraction. The essays explore his early works in India before 1947 and analyze his later abstract landscapes. The anthology of unpublished letters offers a rare glimpse into Raza's artistic process, while the chrono-biography contextualizes his work within the cultural exchanges of the 1950s to the 1980s. This monograph, accompanying the 2023 exhibition at the Centre Pompidou in Paris, presents a compelling overview of Raza's artistic journey and achievements, published in collaboration with the Raza Foundation, New Delhi, and Centre Pompidou, Paris.