Exhibition of artist SH Raza’s last works explores ‘a new freedom, continuity’
Awarded Padma Vibhushan in 2013, he was also conferred Commandeur de la Legion d'honneur, France's highest civilian honour, in 2015
The exhibition will run till February 23 at Triveni Kala Sangam (Photo courtesy: The Raza Foundation) Until months before he passed away in July 2016 at the age of 94, artist SH Raza would immerse himself for hours in painting his canvases. “What he never forgot was to paint and what he never thought of was death… he never expressed the feeling that these were his last works,” recalls Ashok Vajpeyi, managing trustee of The Raza Foundation.
Almost nine years later, the foundation is now exhibiting a selection of the veteran modernist’s last works in an exhibition titled Antima at Shridharani Art Gallery, Triveni Kala Sangam. “The works explore a new freedom and continuity,” adds Vajpeyi. While an unfinished canvas featuring Raza’s signature bindu (dot) in black rests on an easel alongside his palette of colours, occupying a central wall is the last painting completed by him — 2016 Swasti — with vibrant hues and geometric patterns, a testament to his mastery as a colourist.
One of India’s most prominent artists, who was also a founding member of the formidable Progressive Artists’ Group — established in 1947 with the endeavour to discover a modern idiom for Indian art — Raza was only 28 when he left India for Paris in 1950, to study at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris on a scholarship by the French government.
Frequenting museums and galleries to study the works of the Western masters and acquainting himself with local artists in the French capital, the Babaria-born artist continued to stay in the European country for nearly 60 years, marrying French artist Janine Mongillat. Never surrendering his Indian citizenship, he often visited India, including his hometown in Madhya Pradesh. In 2010, he finally returned to the country, making Delhi his home.
Awarded Padma Vibhushan in 2013, he was also conferred Commandeur de la Legion d’honneur, France’s highest civilian honour, in 2015. The year 2025 also marks 25 years of The Raza Foundation, a Delhi-based non-profit established by Raza “devoted to arts, culture and ideas”.
While most works on display belong to the period spanning 2010-2016, two were brought by Raza from Paris, including the 2008 Paysage, where fluid brushstrokes come together in an expressive composition.
If in the 2012 Germination, a more open center yields to a denser outer, in the 2014 Tree, the dark shadow stands against the black sun — reminiscent of the motif that appeared in his works from the late ’60s, and that marked the birth of his trademark bindu, described by him as the source of energy and life. He attributed its origins to the dot that his teacher in Mandla drew on a blackboard to contain his restlessness in primary school. “Since I first began painting the bindu (more than 50 years ago) it has transformed. Like people do Ram jap, I do the same with the bindu, going deeper into the subject,” said Raza in an interview to The Indian Express in 2015.
Featuring more than 60 works, the exhibition which is on till February 23, also comprises canvases in black-and-white and his acrylics on paper. This includes more minimalistic depictions as well paintings with text, including one where words from 16th-century poet-saint Goswami Tulsidas’s Vinaya Patrika are accompanied by the bindu.
Analysing the works painted between 2010-2016, Vajpeyi notes: “There are two-three things that are happening. One is that he is anthologising what he had done before, putting it together in new combinations. Second, there are a large number of paintings where he is no longer adhering to his geometrical approach… There is an element of some kind of liberation from his own conventions. He seems to be enjoying the freedom, allowing the form to emerge by itself.”
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