Who amongst the following painters was born in 1922 in Madhya Pradesh, but lived and worked in France since 1950 and died in New Delhi in 2016 ?

Question

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Correct — A, Syed Haider Raza (S. H. Raza). Born in 1922 at Babaria in the Mandla region of Madhya Pradesh, he was a founder-member of the Bombay Progressive Artists' Group (1947). He moved to France in 1950 and spent most of his career there, becoming famous for his 'Bindu' (dot/point) canvases rooted in Indian metaphysics. He returned to India in his last years and died in New Delhi on 23 July 2016 — matching every clue: 1922, born in MP, France from 1950, died in New Delhi in 2016.

Why the other options are wrong — (b) The booklet writes 'M. F. Hussain' — the artist is M. F. Husain (Maqbool Fida Husain). He was born in 1915 at Pandharpur, Maharashtra (not MP), and died in London in 2011, so neither the dates nor the places fit.  (c) Raja Rao was a celebrated English-language novelist (Kanthapura, The Serpent and the Rope), not a painter — he does not fit a question about painters at all.  (d) N. S. Bendre was indeed a major painter born in Indore, Madhya Pradesh, but in 1910 (not 1922); he lived and worked in India and died in Bombay in 1992 — he never settled in France.

Concept: The Progressive Artists' Group, founded in Bombay in 1947 (Husain, Souza, Raza, Ara and others), broke from academic and revivalist styles to embrace modernism. S. H. Raza is one of its towering figures; his mature work distilled Indian spiritual ideas into geometric abstraction centred on the 'Bindu'. Madhya Pradesh claims him as one of its most famous sons.

State PCS 2019 Q37 — Madhya Pradesh GK PYQ with Answer

State PCS 2019 Q37 — Madhya Pradesh GK PYQ with Answer