Important Notice

In the present lot, Akbar Padamsee constructs the portrait on canvas through brief, staccato dabs of paint applied with a palette knife. The earthy brown tones of the figure, against patches of blue, set a contemplative tone for the painting. Padamsee painted portraits for a brief period in the 1950s, after which he concentrated on developing his vocabulary for cityscapes and metascapes. He returned to the portrait in the 1980s. The portraits he... In the present lot, Akbar Padamsee constructs the portrait on canvas through brief, staccato dabs of paint applied with a palette knife. The earthy brown tones of the figure, against patches of blue, set a contemplative tone for the painting. Padamsee painted portraits for a brief period in the 1950s, after which he concentrated on developing his vocabulary for cityscapes and metascapes. He returned to the portrait in the 1980s. The portraits he made during this period echo the painting techniques of his metascapes and are markedly different from his earlier portraits. By this time, 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)

Padamsee has said that he often constructs portraits using his own reflection in the mirror as a starting point and as his "immediate inspiration." According to Ranjit Hoskote, "His aim is to allude to the human face in the border zone between likeness and presence, an aim he shares with the Byzantine iconographers of the 6th and 7th centuries AD, who were similarly preoccupied with the reconciliation of numinous spirit with recognisable body. Padamsee dwells on the fascination with one's own face that one experiences on looking into the mirror... In gazing at these apparently remote figures, we confront our own predicaments, are returned to the loom of time." ("The Ricochet of the Line," Akbar Padamsee: Drawings, Watercolours, Photographs, Mumbai: Pundole Art Gallery, 2004, pp. 4, 5)

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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