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拍品專文
Hari Ambadas Gade and Sayed Haider Raza: An Enduring Friendship
Born in 1917, Hari Ambadas Gade was one of the six founding members of the influential Progressive Artists’ Group (PAG), and later helped establish the Bombay Artists’ Group as well. After graduating from Nagpur University with degrees in Education and Science, Gade taught mathematics for a few years before deciding to formalize his hobby of drawing and enrolling at the Nagpur School of Art.
The artist’s friend and colleague, Sayed Haider Raza, who also trained at the Nagpur School of Art, encouraged Gade’s work and convinced him to join Ara, Husain, Souza, Bakre and himself in founding the PAG in 1947. Gade’s vivid watercolor landscapes, exhibited at the Group’s initial shows in Bombay, Baroda and Ahmedabad the following years, earned him critical recognition. Other memorable works of this period were the sensitive, expressionist portraits of each other that Gade and Raza painted.
Over the next few years, several of the original PAG members including Raza left India, and the group eventually dissolved in 1954. Choosing to remain in India, Gade soon found the recognition and commercial success he had enjoyed beginning to flag. Turning to education once again, he took up a teaching job in New Delhi to support his family, painting only occasionally. When he returned to Bombay in 1977, Gade continued to paint recreationally but seldom exhibited his work. While the achievements of his PAG colleagues made the headlines regularly, Gade’s talent and work was largely neglected. In 1994, the artist suffered a stroke, and painting became harder and even less frequent.
In 2000-01, more than fifty years after they first met, Raza, who had been living in France since 1949, called on Gade on a visit to India to rekindle their friendship and learn about his recent work. Raza also wanted to help support Gade by guiding him in the sale of several paintings that his friend had bought from him many decades ago, as was the practice among the young members of the PAG when the going was tough for them.
Like Gade, Raza was quite frail at the time, and the former’s granddaughter Avanti remembers him holding onto her arm for support as he went through the rooms of the Gade family home to view his friend’s works. She also recalls a distinct discussion that day when Gade urged Raza to accept the proceeds of the sale of his paintings, and the latter’s refusal to agree to that. Raza remained adamant that he wouldn’t even take part of the proceeds, maintaining that selling the works to Gade in that early and tough period enabled him to eat and go on painting. The one work by Raza that Gade did not sell at the time was his favorite, an early watercolor harbor scene that Raza originally inscribed to his mentor and patron Emmanuel Schlesinger and then sold to Gade (lot 179).
This moment in the lives of two artists in their advanced years cemented a friendship that had lasted more than half a century. Although this reunion would be the last time they met, as Gade passed away shortly after, it underscored the strong, symbiotic relationships on which the foundations of modern art in India were laid.
Born in 1917, Hari Ambadas Gade was one of the six founding members of the influential Progressive Artists’ Group (PAG), and later helped establish the Bombay Artists’ Group as well. After graduating from Nagpur University with degrees in Education and Science, Gade taught mathematics for a few years before deciding to formalize his hobby of drawing and enrolling at the Nagpur School of Art.
The artist’s friend and colleague, Sayed Haider Raza, who also trained at the Nagpur School of Art, encouraged Gade’s work and convinced him to join Ara, Husain, Souza, Bakre and himself in founding the PAG in 1947. Gade’s vivid watercolor landscapes, exhibited at the Group’s initial shows in Bombay, Baroda and Ahmedabad the following years, earned him critical recognition. Other memorable works of this period were the sensitive, expressionist portraits of each other that Gade and Raza painted.
Over the next few years, several of the original PAG members including Raza left India, and the group eventually dissolved in 1954. Choosing to remain in India, Gade soon found the recognition and commercial success he had enjoyed beginning to flag. Turning to education once again, he took up a teaching job in New Delhi to support his family, painting only occasionally. When he returned to Bombay in 1977, Gade continued to paint recreationally but seldom exhibited his work. While the achievements of his PAG colleagues made the headlines regularly, Gade’s talent and work was largely neglected. In 1994, the artist suffered a stroke, and painting became harder and even less frequent.
In 2000-01, more than fifty years after they first met, Raza, who had been living in France since 1949, called on Gade on a visit to India to rekindle their friendship and learn about his recent work. Raza also wanted to help support Gade by guiding him in the sale of several paintings that his friend had bought from him many decades ago, as was the practice among the young members of the PAG when the going was tough for them.
Like Gade, Raza was quite frail at the time, and the former’s granddaughter Avanti remembers him holding onto her arm for support as he went through the rooms of the Gade family home to view his friend’s works. She also recalls a distinct discussion that day when Gade urged Raza to accept the proceeds of the sale of his paintings, and the latter’s refusal to agree to that. Raza remained adamant that he wouldn’t even take part of the proceeds, maintaining that selling the works to Gade in that early and tough period enabled him to eat and go on painting. The one work by Raza that Gade did not sell at the time was his favorite, an early watercolor harbor scene that Raza originally inscribed to his mentor and patron Emmanuel Schlesinger and then sold to Gade (lot 179).
This moment in the lives of two artists in their advanced years cemented a friendship that had lasted more than half a century. Although this reunion would be the last time they met, as Gade passed away shortly after, it underscored the strong, symbiotic relationships on which the foundations of modern art in India were laid.