b. 1928 -

This is an artist whose work ranges from the figure to non-figuration...an artist difficult to bracket. In fact for Padamsee it not the bracketing which is of consequence, for his main pre-occupation is with the form, volume, space, time, and colour. He is very conscious of every mark that he makes, the process of creation is one of contemplation and articulation of thoughts and ideas.

"While working he has a blank canvas on which he tries out everything before applying it to the final one, the reason for doing so is that he wants to avoid error" - this for Dadiba Pundole of Pundole Art Gallery sums up the persona of Akbar Padamsee and his works. Though very meticulous in his method of working, the colours in his paintings pulsate with throbbing energy, for he is a master colourist.

Although he is best known as a painter, Akbar Padamsee has experimented with film-making, sculpture, and writing as an art critic. His formal education was in the fine arts - Padamsee graduated from the Sir J.J. School of Art in 1940 with a diploma in painting and series of sculpture classes behind him. In an interview with Dnyaneswar Nadkarni, he comments:"In those days, learning painting in that tree-studded campus was a heady experience." An ex-professor from the J.J. School describes him as an "aristocratic intellectual, aloof from the usual hurly-burly of the school," showing a rare seriousness and sense of direction as an artist.

The more familiar of his body of works are the "metascapes" and "mirror images" (non-figurative), and the figures and "heads", which he keeps going back and forth between. The metascapes are a development from the landscapes. The mirror images show his concern with the duality of existence, of form and space. The figure is treated not as an individual, not even in the heads where the association with portraiture is even stronger. The only occasion when he has handled portraits of known people, was in 1997, with his Gandhi series of works on paper in watercolour and charcoal.

Padamsee's pioneering spirit has allowed him to experiment with a wide range of mediums: the gamut of the traditional ones, to the most recent of the additions of computer graphics. Whatever his chosen medium he conveys a command over use of space form and colour.