Monsoon in Bombay

The artist has depicted Flora Fountain in the rain. The fountain is a famous sculptural landmark in southern Bombay.

Syed Haider Raza (1922) is one of the most important contemporary artists of India. He was an influential member of the Progressive Artists' Group (PAG). PAG was one of a number of Left-wing groups that were active in the 1930-40s Indian cultural scene. In this context, theatre professionals, writers and visual artists united under the 'progressive' banner and loosely endorsed Left-wing ideals to produce and circulate art together. PAG, founded in Bombay in 1947, included artists Francis Newton Souza, Krishnaji Howlaji Ara, Syed Haider Raza, Hari Ambadas Gade and Sadanand Bakre. PAG members rejected the nationalist art propounded by the Bengal School and embraced the Surrealist, Expressionist, Primitivist and Cubist styles of the international avant-gardes.

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Raza was born in the village of Barbaria in Madhya Pradesh. In 1947, he joined PAG and developed a bold, colour-rich abstract style. In 1950 the artist won a French government scholarship and went to study painting at the Ecole Nationale des Beaux-Arts in Paris. Here, he continued experimenting with western modernist visual idioms moving away from Expressionism and developing an entirely abstract visual language.