Sayed Haider Raza (1922-2016), "Bindu" (2008), glazed terracotta, incised signature lower right. H. 54.8 x 54.8 cm Original edition of 12 made at La Tuilerie, 89250 Treigny in 2008 Sayed Haider Raza, born on 22 February 1922 in Barbara (India) and died on 23 July 2016 in Delhi, was a contemporary Indian painter. He lived in France from 1950 to 2011 and then returned to India. At the end of 1947, at the time of independence and the partition of India, his family moved to Pakistan, but he chose to remain in India. He entered the Nagour School of Fine Arts and then the J.J. School of Arts in Bombay. At this school, he was taught by J. M. Ahivasi (en), who drew on Indian cultural heritage, and some of his works from this period may also evoke those of Amrita Sher-Gil. He was the founder of the Progressive artist group, with friends including Francis Newton Souza (1924-2002) and Maqbool Fida Husain (1915-2011). This pictorial group was apolitical, but wanted to be both Indian and modern, although this modernism was essentially influenced by abstract expressionism and post-impressionism. From 1955 onwards, he exhibited at the Lara Vincy gallery, and became part of what came to be known as the École de Paris. After 1970, figurative elements gradually faded in his painting: "The colours, which most often lose none of their intensity, are applied in bold strokes. The composition, less and less subject to the landscape, is organised in swarms of patches" From 2011, he returned to settle permanently in India, where he died in 2016.