New Delhi : He was 94. Raza was suffering from old-age related ailments and was in the ICU of a private hospital for the last two months.
“The end came at 11.00 am,” poet Ashok Vajpeyi, who was a close friend of the artist, told PTI.
The last rites will be conducted in Mandala in Madhya Pradesh, according to his wishes.
Primarily known for his abstracts in acrylic, Raza was born on February 22, 1922 and grew up in a small village in Madhya Pradesh. He went on to study at the Sir JJ School of Art and founded the Bombay Progressive Artists’ Group (1947), which challenged the existing art establishment.
His body of work is instantly recognisable thanks to the geometric motifs that feature in it. He has explored themes of prakriti (nature), kundalini (primal energy), tribhuj (triangle) and bindu (circle/dot).
His paintings have sold for record prices — Saurashtra, which sold for Rs 15.9 crore, and La Terre, which sold for Rs 18.8 crore — count among the most expensive paintings sold at an auction. But the artist remains unfazed by the attention. “What matters is value, not price,” he had said.
