SYED HAIDER RAZA (B. 1922)

"When he came out of his shell at the age of twenty, he was a painter of light, deft, fluid water colours of landscapes and town-scenes. In the first years of 1942 to 44 it was particularly the image of the city of Bombay that fascinated the young artist. Looking down from the windows of the process studio - which provides livelihood and lodging in the early and hungry days of studentship - into the narrow and teeming streets of an old part of Bombay city, he took in with an all-absorbing curiosity the shapes of houses, the pattern of cars parked in front of them and the patterning of people filling the streets. This was, at first, good talented school painting, highlighted by an early mastery of medium and technique and by an intuitive understanding of the 'constructive', i.e., the non-illustrative or non-representational quality of colour in painting. It was that quality, more than any other, that made Raza stand out from the rank and file of his contemporaries." (R. von Leyden, Raza, Bombay, 1959, p. 3)