Important Notice

This present lot was created during a time of transition for Raza, as he grew closer to the use of geometry and the bindu that emerged in his later works. The colour and composition of La Terre / The Earth (Green) demonstrates his earlier gestural brushwork, but also has distinct elements of structure and geometry. Though the loose brushwork remains, it is now circumscribed within a definite frame composed of solid, horizontal and... This present lot was created during a time of transition for Raza, as he grew closer to the use of geometry and the bindu that emerged in his later works. The colour and composition of La Terre / The Earth (Green) demonstrates his earlier gestural brushwork, but also has distinct elements of structure and geometry. Though the loose brushwork remains, it is now circumscribed within a definite frame composed of solid, horizontal and vertical lines of colour. Dark, multi-hued greens frame the inner composition that is subtly divided vertically into two, and is both reminiscent of traditional miniature painting and indicative of the changes that were soon to transform Raza's idiom.

In 1978, Raza was invited by the Madhya Pradesh government to present an exhibition of his works-an event that was a huge success and once again placed the artist firmly within the modern Indian art landscape. His hometown in Madhya Pradesh was a recurring subterranean image in his works during this time. Rajasthan, "the land of deserts, miniatures and colours" (Ashok Vajpeyi ed., A Life in Art: S.H. Raza, New Delhi: Art Alive Gallery, 2007, p. 114) too, was a huge influence, particularly in way of the tradition of miniature paintings it offered. While he never painted a miniature work, Raza employed the dominant colours and different divisive techniques of miniature painting on to his canvases.

According to art critic Rudy von Leyden, who later attended the exhibition in Bern where the present was acquired by its current owner, Raza's India visits had "resensitized his perceptiveness for a final supreme and universal viewing of nature, not as appearance, not as spectacle but as an integrated force of life and cosmic growth reflected in every elementary particle and in every fibre of a human being... Nature became to Raza something not to be observed or to be imagined but something to be experienced in the very act of putting paint on canvas. Painting acts itself out as a natural force, struggling in darkness, breaking into light, shivering in cold, burning in heat, trying to find form and yet dissolving into chaos... the work of art emerges as an entity of vibrating power, metamorphosis incarnate, unchangeable and ever changing like the forces of nature reflected in the human mind." (Rudolf von Leyden, "Metamorphosis," Raza, Mumbai: Chemould Publications and Arts, 1985)

"Love for each other, human compassion springs from the precious demonstration of nature in everyday existence, in animal life, in human life." - S H Raza

All proceeds from this sale will go to Das Tier + Wir, a charity for animal welfare in Bern, Switzerland, founded by Erica Kalika Bl??chlinger, who has dedicated her life to the ethical treatment of animals. A Gandhian in spirit, she headed the Swami Muktananda meditation centre in Bern during the 1960s, a place for people from around the world who were interested in Indian philosophy. Gallerist Kekoo Gandhy, and several leading Indian artists were part of her circle during this time. In 1982, Gandhy's eldest daughter Rashna organised a show of Raza's paintings at the Gallery Loeb in Bern, which was attended by several past Volkart India employees, and other Raza collectors including Henning Holk Larsen of Larsen & Tubro. Rudy von Leyden, who had first spotted Raza as a young artist at the Bombay Art Society in the 1950s, too attended and gave a touching speech. Raza's La Terre / The Earth (Green), with its lively expression of nature's bounty was acquired by Ms. Blochlinger at this show. The painting has since been cherished in an environment where nature, animals and spirituality were equally valued.

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