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Lot 32

 

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From classical forms in the 1950s to melancholic, haunting portraits in later years, Akbar Padamsee has explored figuration throughout his artistic career. The present lot, painted in 1987, with its overall subdued colour palette, is typical of his style during this period - a departure from the vibrant, saturated colours of his metascapes. Padamsee evokes mood through dabs of thick paint applied with a palette knife. By the 1980s,... From classical forms in the 1950s to melancholic, haunting portraits in later years, Akbar Padamsee has explored figuration throughout his artistic career. The present lot, painted in 1987, with its overall subdued colour palette, is typical of his style during this period - a departure from the vibrant, saturated colours of his metascapes. Padamsee evokes mood through dabs of thick paint applied with a palette knife. By the 1980s, Padamsee's figuration was "heavier than that of the sixties but not much different. The bodies and faces have aged a little. There are single figures and couples. The mood is one of irrevocable sadness. The heads are turned away from the aridity which life holds." (Ella Datta, Akbar Padamsee: The Spirit of Order, New Delhi: Art Heritage, 1988-1989, online)

Padamsee's continued interest in the landscape is visible in the composition of this singular figure who dominates the canvas. "Lone figures have allowed him the possibility for exploring the formal and existential meaning of space and the location of the human in it. Singular males or females appear to work on the canvas like architecture does to populate and perhaps acculturate a terrain. That is why his portraits... endow a monumentality and ponderousness to the figures." (Bhanumati Padamsee and Annapurna Garimella eds., Akbar Padamsee: Work in Language, Mumbai: Marg Publications and Pundole Art Gallery, 2010, p. 90) Placed off-centre and located on a background that recalls his abstract landscapes from the 1960s, Padamsee's interests in form and structure are evident.

Padamsee has said that he often constructs portraits using his own reflection in the mirror as a starting point and as his "immediate inspiration." Rarely identifiable, these lone figures explore very real, existentialist concerns: "I draw my figures and forms from the world that I know intimately, but viewers also find there is a sense of detachment or alienation in them. My figures are not heroic creatures, nor are they angst-ridden, shattered beings. They exist, and on their flesh and bones is stamped the experience of living." (Artist quoted in an interview with Paromita Chakrabarti, The Indian Express, 20 September 2015, online) The present lot, with a pensive, older subject displays this "experience of living" in Padamsee's typically aloof, yet emotion-laden portrayal.

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