Abdul Aziz "A. A." Raiba (20 July 1922 – 15 April 2016) was an Indian painter. Educated at the Sir J. J. School of Art in Bombay (1942–46), Raiba started painting professionally in the early 1950s. He won several medals from the Bombay Art Society: Bronze and silver medals, 1947–51; and the gold medal in 1956. His paintings are in collections in the Cairo Museum, Egypt, in the Nagpur Museum and in the National Gallery of Modern Art in Delhi. His work has been shown in over 20 exhibitions. He painted several large murals for clients such as Air India and Ashok Hotel. His work is characterised by bold shapes, strong outlines and simple use of sophisticated color. His landscapes often use a deliberately naive perspective. Early life Temkar Street, off Kamathipura, in Bombay Central, is a street that is inhabited predominantly by Konkani Muslims, coming from the coastal regions of Maharashtra, who speak a dialect of Marathi. Their family names are similar to those of their Hindu neighbours. Abdul Aziz Raiba, was born into one such family on this street in 1922. His father was a tailor and he came from a family of meagre means. Education from an early age for him was dependent on the availability of scholarships. He began his education at a Gujarati medium school, though Marathi was his first language. Later he secured a scholarship to study at the progressive and prestigious Anjuman-I-Islam school. Here he excelled in Urdu, and was asked by his teachers to become a writer. Raiba began writing couplets and soon took to translating the works of Allama Iqbal to English. He learnt Arabic calligraphy, and a Hindu teacher seeing this ability, realised he could draw well. Asking Raiba what he was doing, Raiba was unable to answer, not knowing what it was called. The teacher told him that he had a talent of great use, and introduced him to the artist Dandavatimath. Dandavatimath, along with artist Rao and Prof Badigar, had established a school called Nutan Kala Mandir, or the Modern Art Temple, at the Blavatsky Lodge of the Theosophical Society at French Bridge, Opera House in Bombay. Schooling Raiba studied at the school for a foundation course, learning basic techniques essential for admission to the Sir JJ School of Art. The school's location at the Theosophical Society, had an interchange of dialogue between Art and the principles of