Home and Away

Where do artists come from, asks Kishore Singh. What nationality do we ascribe to works of art? And should it matter?

In 2016, The ARTIST SYED Haider Raza returned to Mandla, in Madhya Pradesh, to be interred in the small town of his childhood by the banks of the Narmada, completing a cycle of coming home that began in 1979.

On several occasions he shared, with me and other writers, memories of a sensitive childhood spent in Mandla. He left the town behind because it was too small to provide him an adequate education. This he received in stages, moving first to Indore, then Bombay and, finally, to the heady, hedonistic Paris of the 1950's.

Given that he lived for 60 years in France, he could hardly be faulted for thinking of his art as French, or European, or Western. He had been awarded the highly regarded Prix de la Critique in 1956 and been admired and collected by French and other European collectors early in his career; later, of course, at the turn of the century, he became known as France’s most expensive living artist for the huge sums his work commanded. His seemingly sudden turnabout, then, his choice to embrace his Indian identity having spent so long as a Frenchman, came as a surprise.

What explained Raza’s epiphany? And should it really have been any surprise?

As Indians, we know our identities to be plural, complex and polarising. Raza’s decision to be buried in Mandla, next to his father’s grave, shows that some Indians retain a psychic loyalty, an allegiance of the heart to their roots no matter how celebrated they become outside their country, no matter how many world capitals they might call home.