
Akbar Padamsee, Untitled, 2006, watercolour on paper, 15 x 11”.
His oeuvre spans over six decades focussing primarily on nudes, heads and landscapes
Using a variety of mediums like oil paintings, watercolours, sculpture, photography and printmaking, Padamsee’s work explores genres like nudes, heads and metascapes, mirroring much of post- independence India’s struggle with body, figure and abstraction. For the artist, formalist and conceptual concerns often override his concern for the subject. His nudes are often given a treatment similar to a landscape while his heads rarely make an attempt at portraiture.
Although known as a painter, Padamsee has experimented with a variety of mediums like filmmaking, photography, computer graphics and printmaking. Initially using nude photography to assist in his drawing, it was at a much later stage that he discovered photography as a tool of study in the properties of light and of form.

Akbar Padamsee, Untitled (Cityscape), 1962, oil on canvas, 16 1/4 x 10 1/2”.

Akbar Padamsee, Nude Study 8, 2005, photograph, 31 x 25“.

Akbar Padamsee, Metascape,1977, oil on canvas. 60 x 60”.

Akbar Padamsee, Untitled, 2006, watercolour on paper, 23.22 x 30”.