SYED HAIDER RAZA (B. 1922)

During his early years in Bombay, with the support of the art critic, Rudy von Leyden, his tutor and mentor, Walter Langhammer, and his patrons, Kekoo Gandhy and Emanuel Schlesinger, Raza discovered and nurtured the primary artistic inspiration that reverberates throughout his career; the land and nature around him.

In this early landscape painting, Metascape, one can trace a direct influence from Langhammer's paintings of houseboats on Dal Lake, village scenes and Himalayan landscapes. Inspired by his visit to Kashmir in 1948, where Raza met the photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson, who suggested that he study the works of Cezanne, Raza's landscapes were newly infused with emotion and spirituality. Form and color then took on a new significance.