Description

Abdul Aziz Raiba was born in the year 1922 in the city of Bombay. He trained briefly the Nutan Kala Mandir before enrolling in the J.J school of Art in 1942, where he studied Indian Miniature techniques.He was known for his bold shapes and bright colours and for using natural pigments that he made out of lemon and mango peel. He also preferred using scraps of sarees and jute cloth as his canvas.

In his earlier works, he depicts Christ, female nudes, and the erotic with sharp linear, angular shapes, falling short of being defined as cubist. His influence from the miniature painting techniques can be seen more in his bold use of colours especially yellows and browns, rather than form and lines. In his later works, Raiba’s pictorial language was characterised by depicting multiple perspectives in the same plane. He blurred out the horizon and instead illuminated intended subjects, giving them a three-dimensional sculpted quality.

Initially a part of the Progressives Artists Group, he soon disassociated himself with the group in order to find his own individual style. He visited Kashmir on the advice of the renowned critic Walter Langhammer where the animals and folk motifs that he witnessed formed a huge part of his oeuvre. The journey to Kashmir was monumental and led him to move away from the miniature style of painting to large scale watercolours. So enamoured was he by the beauty and landscape of Kashmir that he decided to settle there for about 5 years. AA Raiba was also commissioned to create large murals for several clients such as Air India and the Ashok Hotel in Delhi. The artist passed away in 2016 at the age of 94 at his home in Mumbai.