AKBAR PADAMSEE (B. 1928)

“I realised, grey was not an urbane tonality, this was very good. I had six or seven bottles of different grey paints, each marked with a corresponding color. I had a whole set. I started painting and it worked marvellously." (In conversation with the artist, January 2012)

In 1959, upon his return to Bombay from Paris, Akbar Padamsee discovered that in using the color grey alone as his palette, there was potential for a ground-breaking impactful painterly language distinctly his own. Untitled (Head) was painted in 1962, during the few years when Padamsee painted his series of grey paintings where the palette was governed by different shades of grey. During this time of fervent discovery of forms and their relationship to color, the treatment of Padamsee’s figures for the first time displayed a new subtlety and tenderness in their sensibility. "It's far more exciting for me as a painter, to work in grey or sepia. The brush can move freely from figure to ground, and this interaction offers me immense formal possibilities." (Artist statement, H. Bhabha, 'Figure and Shadow: Conversations on the Illusive Art of Akbar Padamsee', Work in Language, Mumbai, 2010, p. 52)