Osian's Auction Catalogue Forty Masterpieces | March 2003

“ ‘I don’t want to narrate or tell a story. I structure. Structure is what I am working with.’ This sharp condensation is the kernel of his optimal works…In Padamsee’s structuration, this notion of the durable, with its associations of endurance, enduring and duration, is of no mean agency – allotted a position above the flux, his figures and landscapes are forceful enough to submerge the ongoing in the moment. His ideology is one of containment, and his modes are geared to that end: the outlines of the composition are graphed, but improvisation is conducted around them…the stroke hatches a grid for the light to spead at differential densities…” (Ranjit Hoskote, in ‘Akbar Padamsee: Between the Hieratic and the Human’ reprinted in AHJ 11 (1991-92); p136.) Landscape S/d in English, l.l. Pen & ink on paper, 1968 17.8 x 52.3 cm [7.0 x 20.6 in] Provenance Private Collection, Kolkata Rs. 250,000 – 325,000 $ 5,200 – 6,800 £ 3,100 – 4,100 _ 4,800 – 6,300 78 79 26 AKBAR PADAMSEE [b.1928/ Bombay, Maharashtra]