Born in 1922 in Madhya Pradesh, Raza studied painting, initially, at Nagpur School of Arts before joining JJ School of Art. Being deeply rooted to his soil of origin, he worked on developing a modern language of Indian art. He co-founded the 'Progressive Artists’ group along with Francis Newton Souza, M.F. Husain and Tyeb Mehta, to be joined later by S.K.Bakre, Akbar Padamsee and Tyeb Mehta. He held a few exhibitions along with his group before joining L’Ecole Nationale des Beaux Arts, Paris, in 1950.

He settled down in France and married the French artist, Janine Mongillat. His settling in France could not severe his roots from his birth place, hence he started visiting India regularly, particularly after the 1970’s. His works carried the fervor and spirit of India which he expressed in his later series “Bindu”. His work changed from expressionist landscape to abstraction as if wanting to share his belief in the metaphysical form, that is above the materialism that hinders the higher growth of an individual.

Raza showed keen interest in the people and culture of his native land, right from the beginning. He was attracted to the profundity of spirit, after having personally established control over his wavering mind, at a young age. He was fascinated by the Ragas which according to its Sanskrit root 'ranjh' means, to colour the mind. Raga and Ragamala played an important role in his later works. As he said – What is Raga? It is a certain melody, which colours the heart of man. Colour in Indian art is ecstasy.

Though his family moved to Pakistan after partition, he never broke his ties with the place that he was born in. He visits India regularly and is never tired of imbibing the essence of India.