Lot 15
  • 15

Sayed Haider Raza (b.1922)

Estimate
1,500,000 - 2,500,000 USD
bidding is closed

Description

  • Sayed Haider Raza
  • Village with Church
  • Signed and dated 'RAZA '58' lower right
  • Oil on canvas
  • 62 3/4 by 50 3/4 inches (161 by 130 cm)

Provenance

Christie's New York, May 17, 1994, lot 549
Acquired by Mrs. John D. Rockefeller III, Graham Gallery, New York, March 1959

Exhibited

Asia Society, New York, 1962
Chatham College, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania: Trends in Contemporary Painting from India, 12 April - 3 May 1960
Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo, Michigan: Trends in Contemporary Painting from India, 4 - 25 January 1960
Denison University, Granville, Ohio: Trends in Contemporary Painting from India, 3- 23 March 1960
Eastern Tennessee State College, Johnson City, Tennessee: Trends in Contemporary Painting from India, 6- 27 February 1960
Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo, Michigan: Trends in Contemporary Painting from India, 4 - 25 January 1960
SUNY, Oswego, New York: Trends in Contemporary Painting from India, 10 - 30 October 1959
Dorothy Yepez Gallery, Saranac Lake, New York: Trends in Contemporary Painting from India, 25 August - 5 September 1959
Speed Museum, Louisville, Kentucky: Trends in Contemporary Painting from India, 5 - 25 July 1959
West Virginia Institute of Technology, Montgomery, West Virginia: Trends in Contemporary Painting from India, 7 - 28 April 1959
American University, Washington, D.C.: Trends in Contemporary Painting from India, 8 - 29 March 1959
Graham Gallery, New York: Trends in Contemporary Painting from India, 10 - 26 February 1959

Literature

Ashok Vajpeyi, Raza, Delhi, 2002, illustrated

Condition

In very good overall condition, paint surface recently cleaned and consolidated, minor areas of paint shrinkage particularly to areas of dark blue, minor hairline craquelure to upper, lower and left edge, as viewed.
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
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Catalogue Note

One of the most significant paintings by Syed Haider Raza to appear on the market, Village with Church (1958), from the collection of the late Mr. and Mrs. John D. and Blanchette Rockefeller III, represents the apex of Raza's early period (1943-1959).

Exhibited in the ground breaking gallery show Trends in Contemporary Painting from India, organized by Mr. and Mrs. Thomas and Martha Keehn and co-sponsored by The American Federation of the Arts and Asia Society, Village with Church was presented in ten galleries across the United States in 1958-59, alongside nineteen works by such legendary artists as MF Husain, VS Gaitonde, Krishen Khanna, Ram Kumar, Akbar Padamsee, Mohan Samant and FN Souza in the North American debut of the Progressive Artists' Group.

Purchased by Blanchette Rockefeller at the exhibition's inaugural at Graham Gallery show in New York City in February 1959, Village with Church entered the historic Rockefeller Collection, where it remained until 1994. In 2007, another work from the Rockefeller collection, White Center by Mark Rothko, was sold at Sotheby's New York for a world record price of over $72,000,000 (17 May 2007, lot 31). 

JDR III IN INDIA
The eldest son of JDR Jr., and scion of the renowned American philanthropic Rockefeller family, JDR III devoted his life to the promotion of Asian-American relations and intercultural exchange, mostly notably through the establishment of Asia Society in New York.

Of particular interest to JDR III was the newly established Indian republic. Mr. and Mrs. Rockefeller III made many trips to India during this period, meeting with artists, politicians, gallerists, prominent businessmen and dignitaries in an advisory capacity for the Rockefeller Foundation. In particular, JDR III met frequently with Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and his daughter Indira Gandhi to discuss the promotion of traditional arts, crafts and dance, as well as progressive social policy in the new modern India. To this end, JDR III founded both the Indian Cooperative Union and the American Association for Economic and Social Development (AAESD) in Delhi. In 1952, his brother Nelson Rockefeller, then the governor of New York, appointed Thomas Keehn the representative of the Rockefeller Foundation at AAESD.

The Keehns' eight-year stay in India, from 1953-1961, overlapped with one of the most dynamic periods in modern Indian art history: the rise of the Progressive Artists' Group (PAG) and the birth of Indian modernism. The Keehns befriended many of these artists, and were amongst the first and earliest collectors of traditional and modern Indian art. In 1955, the Keehns played a key role in organizing an exhibition on Indian jewelry and textiles for The Museum of Modern Art in New York. In 1956, through the auspices of the AAESD, the Keehns organized the exhibition 8 Painters in Delhi, highlighting the work of the founding members of the PAG.

One year later, in 1957, JDR III established Asia Society in New York, "formed for the purpose of helping to bring the peoples of the United States and Asia closer together in their knowledge and understanding of each other and each other's way of life." This non-profit membership organization program included (and continues to include) the stimulation of education in the United States concerning Asia; the rendering of service to Asians who come to the United States; and the encouragement of cultural exchange. To this end, Asia House immediately sought out to organize and promote Asian art exhibitions of the highest order, for the most diverse audience possible. This mission was in direct response to the dearth of Asian art interest exhibitions available at the time in the United States, and the founding members of Asia Society sought to specifically address this cultural void.

From the May 1959 Asia Society newsletter:

"With the marked growth of American interest in Asia over the past decade, a number of museums and galleries in this country have sought to promote exhibitions designed to acquaint the public with hitherto unknown aspects of ancient and contemporary Asian art...

"In certain cases the exhibitions have been relatively successful, both in introducing new material and concepts and in achieving widespread notice. In most cases, however, exhibitions of Asian art in this country have been sporadic, isolated and local in character. Dependent largely on the interest of a particular curator in a particular locality, they have been assembled haphazardly from readily available sources, often without reference to experts on Asia or sources in Asia. In only two or three cases has the direct and full cooperation of an Asian government been obtained ..." ("Plan for Travelling Exhibitions of Asian Art", Asia Society, May 1959, p. 1-3)

Based on his experience in India, his work with exhibitions and his personal relationships with the PAG artists, Thomas Keehn was chosen by Asia Society to curate the first ever North American show of contemporary Indian art. The Keehns' 8 Painters exhibition transformed and expanded into a new exhibition, Trends in Contemporary Painting in India, as the flagship traveling exhibition sponsored by Asia Society.

Opening at Graham Gallery, Trends in Contemporary Painting in India then traveled around the United States in 1959-1960, including stops at galleries and museums in Washington D.C., West Virginia, Kentucky, New York, Michigan, Tennessee, Pennsylvania and Ohio, and featuring 20 works on canvas by eight different artists – among them the most lasting names of modern Indian art: SH Raza; VS Gaitonde; MF Husain; FN Souza; Akbar Padamsee; Krishen Khanna; Mohan Samant and Ram Kumar.

An excerpt from the introductory speech at the Graham Gallery exhibition opening by noted art critic George Butler:

"With the arrival of national independence [in India] ... there arose a movement of younger painters who are represented by the works in the present exhibition. Their efforts to put themselves directly into contact with advances in Western art has meant that most of them have lived and worked in London, Paris or Rome for varying periods during the past decade. Apart from individual quality, two things distinguish their work above all others. The first of these is that their work, at its best, is in no sense 'synthetic'. Contrary to all previous stylistic solutions evolved in India during the last century in answer to the problem of the encounter between East and West, there is in the work of these few painters no longer any intellectual effort to find a common denominator between two previously existent and disparate styles; no longer the compulsion to meld particular elements into a new synthetic unity ...

"The distinct national experience [of the Indian avant-garde] provides them with the opportunity to explore an area of painterly expression so far quite overlooked by all other modern painters. The various movements which together make up the general development of modern art in the West have remained quite unaffected by only one great tradition of world art – that of India. In their own way, these few Indians may well be pioneers in that direct line stemming from the innovators of Impressionism in France."

The pioneering nature and lasting impact of Trends in Contemporary Painting from India cannot not be overestimated. The exhibition was both widely viewed and well received, garnering favorable reviews in such publications as The New York Times; ARTNEWS Magazine, New York Herald Tribune; ARTS Magazine; Pictures on Exhibit; and The Christian Science Monitor:

"It is not surprising to observe the high degree of sophistication in this selection from the works of eight young Indian painters ... It has been apparent for some time that Indian artists have been rebelling against what they consider an oppressive tradition. In general they are drawn to European modernism rather than the American variety if we are to judge by this collection. With the exception of Gaitonde, all have traveled widely in Europe ... but the most assimilated artist is Raza, who works in an opulently accomplished Expressionist style reflecting two years of work in France" (ARTS Magazine, February 1959). 

"Trends in Contemporary Painting from India [Graham; Feb 10-24], represented by works of eight artists, demonstrated that the trend,  even for those who have never traveled, is one involved with the attitudes of Western Europe ...

"Raza, the strongest member of the group, views color as energy imparted by the image, destructive of its form and yet allied to it. In Village with Church, all is somber dark blues except for the crystalline excitement of the village and the warm bursts of color in the nearer foliage" (ARTNEWS Magazine, February 1959).

Raza had keen supporters in John and Blanchette Rockefeller, as early collectors of his work. Blanchette and Raza finally had an occasion to meet in 1962, while Raza was in Berkeley as a visiting professor at the University of California. After his stay in California, Raza was invited to New York City as a recipient of a prestigious Rockefeller Fellowship, at the behest of Mr. and Mrs. Rockefeller. He spent a month living and working in the Chelsea Hotel, becoming familiar with the Abstract Expressionist movement and the New York School. This experience and exposure in New York laid the foundation for some of his most important later works, such as L'Ete (1964), now in the collection of Musee d'Art Moderne, Paris.

RAZA: Village with Church
Marked by vivid primary colors, semi-abstracted landscape elements and a deep, impasto-heavy background, Raza's bold, large-scale oil painting is amongst his seminal paintings from the 1950s.

Upon his arrival in Paris in 1950 on a scholarship from the Alliance Française, Raza was deeply moved by the works of the European Modernist masters, particularly Cézanne and Van Gogh. Raza's paintings throughout the 1950s echo the structure and formalism of both of these artists. Raza combined these impulses to forge a unique idiom where space and color move and feed into each other. He turned for inspiration to the French countryside, to Provence and to the Maritime Alps, where "... the landscape with its trees, mountains, villages and churches became his staple diet." (Y. Dalmia, The Making of Modern Indian Art: The Progressives, New Delhi, 2001, p. 152)

Receipt of the prestigious Prix de la Critique (Critic's Award) in 1956 afforded Raza both international recognition and the freedom to leave Paris for a time to travel throughout his beloved adopted homeland of France. Of these personal journeys, Raza explains:

"... the chapels, churches and crosses (of the French countryside) touched me very deeply. I wanted my paintings to express the feeling of fervor and human tension that burned within me." (M. Imbert, Raza: An Introduction to his Painting, Delhi, 2000, p. 37).

This fervor and tension is vigorously demonstrated in other works from this period, such as Village en Provence (1957); Village au Soleil (1958); and Eglise (1962).  Throughout the 1950s in France, Raza painted the landscapes of Europe in semi-abstracted forms, but with identifiable architectural elements that provide a constant link to human activity. As the decade progresses, these identifiable elements disappear and more light and vivid color emerge in his paintings. As French art critic René Barotte once wrote: "From an Indian miniature, (Raza) draws out a French landscape!" (R. von Leyden, Metamorphosis, Bombay, 1979).

Heavy with impasto and punctuated with staccato gestural strokes, Village with Church exudes a dynamic, tempestuous energy so characteristic of the artist; a hybrid of the lyrical abstraction redolent of the postwar École de Paris, and the vibrancy and direct color treatment of a Rajput miniature. In other works from 1958, Village au Soleil, Trees, and Untitled (Landscape with Steeple) one finds similar diagonal compositions along which the architectural elements appear behind an abstracted foreground. Utilizing the artist's signature palette, these works display Raza's fiery exploration on a theme.

One of Raza's largest works on canvas from this period to come to the market, the monumental and historic Village with Church stands as a testament to the enduring legacy of the pioneers of Indian modern art.

 

Special thanks to The Rockefeller Archive Center, Asia Society, The American Federation of the Arts, The Smithsonian Archives of American Art, and M. Michel Imbert for their continued assistance in the preparation of this essay.