Page 86 - Pundole's Auction M0015

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PROPERTY OF A LADY

AKBAR PADAMSEE

b.?1928

Untitled

Oil on canvas
1962
16? × 10¾ in. (41 × 27.3 cm.)
Signed and dated ‘PADAMSEE 62’ lower right

??60,00,000?–?80,00,000

$ 89,550?–119,400

Padamsee has alternated between the nude and the
landscape for over seven decades, a period that has seen
both genres evolve and assume different manifestations
as the artist’s own concerns and areas of interest shifted.

The landscapes of the 1950 and early 1960s are different
from his ongoing dialogue with the Metascapes (see lot 51
for an example). These works were his own interpretation
of the cityscapes he saw around him, inspired by his time
in Europe, North America, and of course, India. Specifically,
the works from 1961 and 1962 are Padamsee’s own
‘earnest investigations of light, colour and form’ through
landscape studies of the European countryside. The
houses appear slightly abstracted, with strong
expressionist brushstrokes. ‘Padamsee began to develop
his own distinct idiom for the popular language of German-
inspired expressionism, with individual houses and
churches reduced to opaque squares and triangles, even
as the composite image would remain referential and
legible as a landscape.’ (Beth Citron, ‘Akbar Padamsee’s
Artistic “Landscape” of the ’60s’, Akbar Padamsee Work in
Language, Mumbai, 2010, pp. 196–197)

These works immediately followed Padamsee’s grey
landscapes of the late 1950s. A lingering flavour of those
earlier cityscapes remains, with large areas of the canvas
retaining the greys of the earlier period, but in these smaller
format landscapes the monochromes are broken with
areas of deep red and orange that infuse each work with
an additional layer of depth and intensity.

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