Born in 1922, Raza spent his childhood growing up in the village of Babaria in Mandala district in Madhya Pradesh surrounded by dark forests and lush landscapes. This early experience with nature became a lifetime preoccupation for Raza, and he would revisit these memories on canvas in later years. His love of art brought him to Bombay where he enrolled privately as a student at the J J School of Arts, earning his diploma in 1947. At the same time, he made his living by working at a blockmaker's design studio in downtown Bombay, which overlooked one of the busiest streets in the city and inspired him to paint his early watercolours. His paintings attracted the attention of fellow artists F N Souza and M F Husain—with whom he co-founded the Progressive Artists’ Group—and critics such as Rudy von Leyden, Walter Langhammer and Emmanuel Schleisinger—three Europeans whose presence, patronage and influence was crucial in the burgeoning art world of then Bombay.

Raza worked mainly with a few primary colours, assembled and reassembled to simulate the passion and colours of his homeland. At the same time, he had realised the spiritual and metaphysical aspects of nature and began incorporating these principles in his works. In the late 1970s, the artist's focus turned to pure geometrical forms; his images were improvisations on an essential theme: that of the mapping out of a metaphorical space in the mind. Around this time, the bindu—a motif that would become synonymous with Raza’s art— began emerging in his work. It was the result of his concern with “pure plastic order” combined with his preoccupation with nature. “Both have converged into a single point and became inseparable; the point, the bindu, symbolises the seed, bearing the potential of all life, in a sense. It is also a visible form containing all the essential requisites of line, tone, colour, texture and space. The black space is charged with latent forces aspiring for fulfilment.

The artist passed away in 2016.