Portrait, 1996

Akbar Padamsee is a modern Indian painter and artist. He is viewed as one of the early voices in modern Indian painting, along with M.F. Hussain, Souza and Raza. His media have included plastic emulsion, oil painting, watercolor, printmaking, sculpture, photographer and even computer graphics. He has also created sculpture, photography and lithographs. In 1951, Akbar Padamsee went to Paris with Raza, and there he met Stanley Hayter, a surrealist who served as his mentor. Padamsee joined Hayter's studio (Atelier 17) and then held his first exhibition in 1952 in Paris. The artists in this show displayed their works anonymously which meant that he shared in the prize which Jouranl d'Artegave his work with Jean Carzou. His first solo exhibition came in 1954 at the Jehangir Art Gallery. Akbar Padamsee’s work is primarily introspective. His series of "Mirror Images" are abstract designs that come through his quest for a formal sort of logic. He has portrayed heads, nudes and landscapes as well as portraits rendered in charcoal and pencils. His oil-based works show considerable depth, almost making them look pictorial. (Artist website)