Progressive Artists Group

At the turning point of Indian History, in 1947, when India went through the tremendous upheaval of gaining freedom from the British empire and a torturous partition, unaffected, a twenty three year old former Communist Party member of modest origin, along with five other members founded the Progressive Artists' group. The five other members were M.F. Hussian, K.H.Ara, H.A.Gade, S.K. Bakre and S.H.Raza. Their manifesto drawn up by Souza, the most articulate and controversial of the group, declared that the world progressive meant 'to go forward' and that was what they intended to do. They summarily denounced the influences of all modern Indian artists, Rabindranath Tagore as too self-obsessed and introverted, Amrita Sher-Gil as a hybrid, Jamini Roy as too unsophisticated and crude, and all eminent artists and influential teachers as too sentimental.

The group's twentieth century modernism was unapologetically linked to the European contemporaries. Their talent, professionalism and the blazing dedication to their art was first spotted by Mulk Raj Anand, India's foremost art critic and novelist of international acclaim. The Progressive Artists Group exhibited for the first time in 1948, and the exhibition was opened by Mulk Raj Anand who dwelt on the significance of providing a platform for a new, not yet fully formed voice, rather than the content of the show. He indicated that they had much ground to cover and three of them went on to achieve that within a decade of the show.

Raza, Souza and Husain emerged as distinguished artists, each of his own evolved style. Raza found his fame in Paris, while Souza shocked London with his compelling work, continuing to defy, taunt and challenge to win praise and success. The third success story was that of the elusive and enigmatic Husian, who stayed in touch with the soil of India to intuitively and spontaneously paint the essence of India, it's countryside and it's mythology and continues to do so more than five decades later. The PAG, however, naively failed to understand the angst and disillusionment in the work of European artists was the result of two horrific world wars. The PAG artists were too free spirited and self absorbed, and failed to reflect on the Indian tragedy of 1947, our Partition. The only artists ever to be influenced by it were the well known Indian Satish Gujaral and a lesser known Pakistani artist Tassadaq Sohail.

After Souza left for England and Raza for France, PAG, as the group had came to be known, faded out.