Akbar Padamsee Art

Akbar Padamsee was a contemporary Indian artist and painter, considered as one of the pioneers in Modern Indian painting along with Raza, Souza and M.F. Hussain. Over the years, he worked with various mediums such as oil painting, plastic emulsion, water color, sculpture, printmaking, computer graphics, and photography. Padamsee has also worked as a filmmaker, sculptor, photographer, engraver and lithographer. Padamsee loved working with Chinese ink and incorporating it in the things he saw around. Today, his paintings are among the most valued by modern Indian artists. He was born on 12th April 1928 in Mumbai. Padamsee was still a student at the Sir J.J. School of Art in Mumbai at the time when the Progressive Artists’ Group (PAG) announced itself on the Indian art scene in 1947. Historically, this is considered to be one of the most influential groups of modern artists to emerge in early post-independent India. He has participated in exhibitions and Biennales in Venice in 1953 and 1955. Padamsee’s very first solo show was held at the Jehangir Art Gallery, Mumbai in 1954. In 1967, a solo exhibition of his paintings was held at the Montreal Museum of Contemporary Art, Canada. A retrospective of his work was organized by the Art Heritage Gallery, in Mumbai and New Delhi in 1980.