Indian Masters – Trinity

S.H Raza

One of the most distinguished artists of the Indian subcontinent, Sayed Haider Raza, simply known as S.H. Raza, is famous for his usage of rich colors in all his portrays. Though he settled down in France in the early 1950s, he continued to represent Indian art by incorporating Indian philosophy and Indian cosmology in his works. Throughout his career, he had mainly used oil and acrylics for his paintings, which highlighted Indian ethnography. He also incorporated the Indian concepts of space and time, which was a huge hit among French, Indian and other art lovers worldwide. In 2010, a seminal work of his titled ‘Saurashtra’ was sold at a Christie’s auction for an impressive $3,486,965 (Rs. 16.42 crore), making him one of the priciest modern artists of India. For his immense contribution in the field of art, S.H. Raza was honored with India’s second highest civilian award, Padma Vibhushan in the year 2013.

The paintings of S.H. Raza revolve mainly around nature and its various facets. Over the years, his paintings evolved from being purely expressionist landscapes to abstract ones. He believes the Bindu (dot) to be the center of creation and existence and his works reflect this particular thinking. Even though the vibrancy of his paintings had become subtle later on in his career, the dynamism remained as alive as ever.

Krishen Khanna

Born in 1925 in what is now Faislabad in Pakistan, Krishen Khanna grew up in Lahore, only studying art after he graduated from college at evening classes held at the Mayo School of Art there. In 1947, Khanna’s family moved to Shimla as a result of the Partition of India and Pakistan, and Khanna was deeply affected by not only the change in his personal life, but also the socio-political chaos that reigned around him. His early works are reproductions of the scenes that were indelibly imprinted in his memory during this period.

Most of Khanna’s work is figurative; he chose to not explore the abstraction that most of his contemporaries were delving into. In an interview with Saffronart he said “I used to do abstracts earlier and I have now moved on to human forms. I thought that the person or the individual is being neglected – the person in a particular situation who is influenced by the conditions around. I want to now emphasise the human beings caught up in their particular condition.”

Bordering on the narrative, Khanna’s work captures moments in history, much like photographs do, but the artist’s technique is far from photo-realist. Khanna transfers his observations onto the canvas with spontaneity and exuberance, keeping the representational elements of his subject matter intact. The artist’s use of colour and his expressionist brushwork make the mundane rise to the challenge of the creative.

M.F. Husain

Born in 1917 in Pandharpur, Maharashtra, Maqbool Fida Husain was brought up by his grandfather after the early death of his mother. In 1919 he moved to Indore to be with his father, where in the following years he started drawing and painting on his own, enrolled in a religious education, developed a fascination for cinema and languages, wrote Urdu poetry and developed an interest in calligraphy. Leaving the diploma course at the Indore School of Art, Husain was admitted into the Sir J.J. School of Art, where he was also unable to complete his studies due to the death of his father. He subsequently moved to Bombay, got married, and got a job at a furniture shop designing nursery furniture and wooden toys.

In 1948, Husain left his job to join the Progressive Artists’ Group founded by his contemporary F.N. Souza, after which he fully embraced his yet-to-be prolific career as an artist. In 1950, Husain held his first solo show in Bombay, and travelled extensively around South Asia and Europe fraternizing with renowned artists such as Chi Pei She, Emile Nolde, Paul Cézanne, Paul Klee and Pablo Picasso. In 1954, he painted his landmark ‘Passage of Time’ piece, marking the beginning of his world renowned horse paintings. He went on to hold solo shows in Zurich, Prague, Tokyo, Baghdad, Kabul, Rome, New York, Bombay and New Delhi, and executed a number of life-size murals for Air India and the Lalit Kala Academy, New Delhi. In 1963, he painted his first portrait, which was of Jawaharlal Nehru.

Jamini Roy

Jamini Roy was one of the most significant and influential painters of the 20th century. He was born in a middle-class family in 1887 at Beliator village in Bankura district of Bengal. His father Ramataran Roy was an amateur artist who, after resignation from government service, spent the rest of his life in his village amidst the potters.

In 1903, at the age of sixteen, Jamini Roy came to Calcutta and studied at the Government School of Art. He learnt academic methods then in vogue in the West, and achieved his early fame as a portrait painter in the European tradition. However, soon Jamini Roy cultivated a personal painting style inspired largely by traditional Indian folk and village arts, particularly those of Bengal. Jamini Roy, through his oil paintings, gave expression to the scenes of every-day life of the people of rural Bengal.

For his paintings, Jamini Roy selected themes from joys and sorrows of everyday life of rural Bengal, religious theme like-Ramayana, Sri Chaitanya, Radha-Krishna and Jesus Christ, but he depicted them without narratives. Apart from this he painted scenes form the lives of the aboriginal Santhals, such as ‘Santhals engaged in drum-beating’ ‘Santhal Mother and Child’ ‘Dancing Santhals’ etc.

S.H Raza

Krishen Khanna

M.F. Husain

Jamini Roy

Works

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