Akbar Padamsee (b. 1928)

minor cracquelure in all four corners, horizontal crack running across the centre of the work, colors richer in reality, as viewed
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'For Akbar Padamsee, painting is a direct result of tensions created by "the linear, the formal, the tonal and the chromatic." His images alternate between the human figure and the landscape, and between primary and tertiary colors - anchors that allow him to enjoy an aesthetic variety to a successful conclusion.' (Amrita Jhaveri, A Guide to 101 Modern and Contemporary Indian Artists, Mumbai, 2005, p. 60).

Padamsee's nudes provide a fascinating insight into the development of his visual language and creative process. Throughout his career the artist has been preoccupied with mapping the human form and capturing its emotive qualites. The sharply defined outlines of his early works later gave way to fluid contours that also embraced elements of informal abstraction. The central theme of Padamsee's work is the solitary figure, defined by a sense of vulnerability and loneliness. The artist expresses his absorption with the solitary state by stating that, "expression is all the more powerful when it is about a solitary figure or just a face." (The artist in conversation with A. K. Datta).

The present work painted in the early 1960s is rich in tonal and textural juxtapositions with the luminous ochre hues contrasting sharply with the shadowy gray-green ground, creating a form that suggests a 'landscape' of the body. In fact this experimentation with color and its application paved the way for the creation of Padamsee's distinctive Metascapes of the following decade.

The skillful tonal variations impart an almost transcendent texture to the surface of the canvas while the lone figure occupies a liminal space between dream and reality as it seems to emerge from within the innermost recesses of the artist's mind, its '...essence extracted from the intensity of real experiences.' (Marta Jakimowicz, Akbar Padamsee: Works on Paper - Critical Boundaries, Bombay, 2004, p. 10).