SYED HAIDER RAZA (B. 1922)

This street scene represents the earliest phase of Syed Haider Raza’s oeuvre, painted in 1948, the year he graduated from the Sir J.J. School of Art and won the Bombay Arts Society gold medal. Influenced by the work of his colleagues in the newly founded Progressive Artists’ Group and by European émigrés and mentors like Walter Langhammer, this work portrays the view from Raza’s small garret room at L. Raja Ram Studios, located on Bomanji Lane in the Fort neighbourhood of Bombay.

Offering a rare, autobiographic glimpse into Raza’s life before he moved to Paris, this work also foreshadows the first major turning point in the artist’s career, when form, colour and structure began to gain primacy over figure and narrative in his landscapes.