Raqib shaw biography of william hill

Raqib Shaw was born in Calcutta in 1974 to a family of luxury goods merchants who sold rugs, shawls, jewels and antiques, hence already from a young age, Shaw was immersed in the world of jewellery, carpets, and fabrics, which had an undoubted influence on his art.

Raised in Kashmir, he often recalls traumatic scenes he was to witness: I survived the civil war. I’ve seen loss and helplessness. I could not stay back in Kashmir and fight for independence. But what I can do is capture the beauty and the pain of Kashmir through the painting.

Shaw’s version of Cranach replaces Saxon hills with a Kashmiri landscape, cavorting infants with a bubble showing a room in his house, and the figure of Melancholy is his self-portrait.

Identical in size to Cranach, the painting is a very personal allegory of melancholy for his land destroyed by war and his own house in London destroyed by fire.

Apart from the