Raza plans to return to India by Dec 2010

New Delhi: Leading modernist painter S H Raza, whose geometric abstracts set auction records, plans by this year end to return to birthplace India from France where he has been living for the past six decades. "I hope to come back... I hope to sell my houses in France and wind up everything and return by December or beginning of next year," Raza, the Indian artist who had popularised the "bindu" worldwide told reporters.

The master artist was in the capital recently to unveil a limited edition collection of seven artworks in canvas prints that he had autographed and numbered with support by the Embassy of France. Born in Madhya Pradesh, Raza, 88, who went to France on a government scholarship and subsequently married French artist Janine Mongillat, currently lives and works in Paris and Gorbio in South France. "My long stay in France has been wonderful and all through the 60 years spent in France, I have retained my Indian citizenship and passport and have been coming to India every year to spend two or three months," says the painter. While eminent painter M F Husain a contemporary member of the Progressive artists` group that he had co-founded in the 50s accepted citizenship of Qatar, Raza says he would not do likewise and will return to India. "Husain is a dear old friend of mine and an excellent painter. He has already made a decision and I won`t comment on that. It is now up to the Government of India to take it up further." Raza says he has been influenced by many European painters but after a period of self introspection and lot of struggle succeeded in creating a style of his own. "While I was in India as a student I was influenced by painters like Cezanne, Van Gogh, Picasso, Gauguin and others. I was a poor thinker and did not know how to express myself. "France taught me that and for the last 20 years. I have been incorporating the ideas of bindu, mandala, prakriti-purusha and panchatatva into my paintings based on the knowledge elements I learnt in France, says the artist. Prints of his works brought out by Master Art, a newly formed company headed by art collector Meenal Gupta are being pegged at price range between Rs 1.25 lakh to Rs 2 lakh. One of his works, "La Terre", was sold for Rs 91,000,000 at an auction in Christie`s in June 2008, while "Maha Bindu" (1988), one of the artist`s signature works, was sold for USD 652,000 by Mumbai-based Saffronart in 2007. Painting for about 3-4 hours daily the painter says he spends most of his time "sitting alone, thinking and writing in Hindi and English." "Art is a matter of a lot of seriousness and pure thinking feeling and love and should be pursued in a serious manner," he says. He may be 88 but age has not dimmed the enthusiasm of the artist who says he plans to take an active interest in Ekatra, a multi-cultural platform constituting artists poets, thinkers, writers among others that he helped set up in Delhi in 2009. PTI