Akbar Padamsee Akbar
Padamsee an inveterate modernist was born in 1928 and received his diploma from the Sir
J.J. School of Art in Mumbai. He left for Paris in 1951 and lived and worked there till
his return in 1967. Among several shows he has had major retrospectives in Mumbai and New
Delhi in 1980. He has participated in the exhibitions, Seven Indian Painters, Gallery One,
London in 1958'Intemational Biennales at Venice; Sao Paulo and Tokyo; Museum of Modem Art,
Oxford, 198 1; Royal Academy of Arts, Festival of India, London 1982;Indian Artists in
France, Paris 1985 among others. In 1967 he was invited as Artist-in Residence by the
Stout State University, Wisconsin, USA.
Padamsee was awarded the Jawaharlal Nehru Fellowship in 1969 with which
he started an inter-arts workshop in Mumbai. To this day it is remembered for the creative
stimulation it provided to artists and fiilmakers. Mani Kaul's film 'Duvidha', Padamsee's
own films' Events in a Cloud Chamber'and Syzygy workshop and Kumar Shahani's short film
were a result of the workshop. A student of Sanskrit he is well versed in texts like the
Upanishads.
Padamsee's forms bounded by the line and created from an assemblage of
strokes on the surface are both real and transcendent. His experiments with the Chinese
method of 'ku fu' have also lent his figures an agile grace. If the forms carry an
expression of ineffable sadness, there are periods when he paints landscapes which express
the grandeur of infinite time. In recent years he had painted Diptychs which are relative
versions of the same landscape.
Padamsee lives and works in Mumbai.
