Sudhir Patwardhan

Good overall condition, as viewed.
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A retired radiologist and self-taught artist, Sudhir Patwardhan began to paint professionally in the 1970s after he moved to Bombay from Pune. Due to his Marxist views and participation in local politics, Patwardhan’s art is a reflection of his sympathies for the marginalised underclasses, specifically the Konkani-Marathi working class. This marks the noticeable difference between the art he creates with that of his contemporaries who depicted the more urban and cosmopolitan side of India. His concerns with class differentiation, social mobility or lack thereof, poverty and urbanisation, are addressed throughout his corpus of works. Incorporating his own style of realism, Patwardhan represents his subjects and surroundings in an accessible manner, so that his work is not only portraying the masses, but is also painted for them. "My aim is to make figures that can become self-images for the people who are the subjects of my work. One of the questions I have asked myself in this context is how close or distanced must I be from the figures I paint. Too close a relation may overburden the image with the artist's private impulses. These impulses give the image intensity, but at the same time they may also insulate the image from other approaches." (S. Patwardhan, Place for People, Bombay and New Delhi, 1981, unpaginated)

Patwardhan believed that each person deserved a unique representation. This resulted in a series of paintings depicting people going about their everyday lives. Their bodies encompass a majority of the canvas and the backgrounds often had an existential solitariness. The people he painted were the people he lived and practised medicine amongst, and this close relation to the subject matter of his works resulted in a very visceral and honest rendering of his portraits, as is evident in this painting titled Young Applicant. The young girl, who appears to be wearing the sombre colours of a school uniform with an envelope in her hand, and a face etched with concern, could very well be one of his neighbours or patients hoping for an education or job, with dreams of a better life.