Born in 1928, Mumbai, Padamsee completed his Diploma in Fine Arts from Sir J.J. School of Art, Mumbai in 1949 before moving on to the Stout State University, Wisconsin after receiving J.D. Rockefeller III Fellowship in 1965.
Padamsee’s first solo exhibition was held in Paris in 1952 at Galerie Saint Placide and since then has exhibited his works in several group and solo shows being held throughout his long career, he has participated in Biennales including the Venice in 1953 and 1955; Sao Paulo and Tokyo in 1959; Museum of Modern Art, Oxford in 1981; Royal Academy of Arts, London in 1982 and National des Arts Plastiques, Paris in 1985.
He was awarded the Padama Bhushan from Government of India in 2010. He is also the recipient of Kailash Lalit Kala Award, New Delhi in 2010; the Dayawati Modi Award in 2008; Lalit Kala Ratna, Lalit Kala Akademi, New Delhi in 2004; Kalidas Samman by the Madhya Pradesh Government 1997-98 etc. He also received the Jawaharlal Nehru Fellowship and made four short films in 1969-70.
Though very meticulous in his method, master colourist Akbar Padamsee’s drawings and paintings pulsate with throbbing energy. This is an artist whose work ranges from the figure to non-figuration; for Padamsee it not the categorization of his work which is of consequence, but rather its relationships with form, volume, space, time, and colour. He is acutely aware of every brush stroke; the process of creation is one of contemplation and articulation of thoughts and ideas. A keen student of Sanskrit, he is well versed with ancient texts and draws from these various influences in his art.
Padamsee’s pioneering spirit has allowed him to experiment with a wide range of mediums: the gamut of the traditional ones to his recent experiments with photography and digital printmaking. Whatever his chosen medium, the artist conveys a command over space, form and colour. Although he is best known as a painter, Padamsee has experimented with film-making, sculpture, and writing as an art critic as well. Padamsee graduated with a diploma in painting and series of sculpture classes behind him. In an interview with Dnyaneswar Nadkarni, he comments: “In those days, learning painting in that tree-studded campus was a heady experience.” An ex-professor from the school describes him as an “aristocratic intellectual, aloof from the usual hurly-burly of the school,” showing a rare seriousness and sense of direction as an artist.
The most familiar works from his extensive oeuvre are the metascapes and mirror images, and the figures and heads, which he keeps oscillating between. The metascapes are a development from landscapes, while the mirror images show his concern with the duality of existence, of form and space. The figure is treated not as an individual, not even in the heads where the association with portraiture is even stronger. The only occasion when he has handled portraits of known people, was in 1997, with his Gandhi series of works on paper in watercolour and charcoal.
Akbar Padamsee lives and works in Mumbai.
