Shortlisted for La Biennale di Venezia in 1956, this other-worldly landscape by Akbar Padamsee imparts a lesson in the true capabilities and sheer brilliance of Modern Art. Austere in color, subject and form, this masterfully constructed composition is profoundly rich in tone, depth and emotivity. This rare and early work should be viewed in the context of the 1950s, a decade of immense international acclaim for the artist, and as a prelude to his revered but brief ‘Grey Period’ of 1959-60. The centrality of the current lot within Padamsee’s remarkable body of work is attested to by its inclusion in the exhibition catalogue of the Art Heritage 1980 retrospective of the artist, organized by famed theatre director and significant patron of the arts, Ebrahim Alkazi.

In the 1950s, three young Indian artists took Europe by storm: Sayed Haider Raza, Francis Newton Souza and Akbar Padamsee. Padamsee travelled from Bombay to Paris in 1951, on the invitation of Raza, his friend and fellow student of the Sir J. J. School of Art. There, he joined the influential art studio Atelier 17, and immersed himself in painting, absorbings various aspects of the art world around him and familiarizing himself with the great masterpieces of the city’s museums and galleries. Padamsee quickly became known on the Paris art scene: in 1952, he held his first show at Galerie Saint-Placide and in the same year became a sensation in the Parisian press after being awarded a sought-after prize by André Breton for Prophet I (1952), a painting he had entered anonymously in a group exhibition organized by Journal d’Art (Lot 19, Replica Shoes 's London, 7 October 2014. Sold for £530,500 / $852,619).

In 1956, the year the current lot was painted, Padamsee’s European fame increased considerably. In Venice’s 28^th Biennale – India’s second year to be represented at the fair – Padamsee was one of only four Indian artists to take part, exhibiting alongside Maqbool Fida Husain, Dinkar Kowshik, and his good friend Raza. The present work travelled to Venice in 1956 to be shown in the Biennale, as testified by the label on the reverse, which bears the number given to the work when it arrived at Venice’s transport office. In the limited and competitive space of the fair, Padamsee is recorded in the 1956 Biennale archives to have exhibited four paintings, all of them portraits. If the current landscape was not exhibited in India’s pavilion, likely owing to a last-minute curatorial decision, its presence in the 1956 Biennale selection is nonetheless a test.mes nt to the eminent distinction of this work. Moreover, noting that Padamsee’s later landscapes in grey (1959-60) soared to fame through a 1960 show held by Bal Chhabda at Gallery 59 and Jehangir Art Gallery back in Bombay, it appears this current early precursor was, in many ways, ahead of its t.mes .

In the present work, the expert play of light and shadow, restricted palette, ascetic shapes and crisp outlines are utilized to create a bold and stylized landscape. Padamsee began experimenting with landscapes in the mid-1950s and works from this period were characterized by bright geometric planes of color. These early depictions tended to focus on just a few buildings and it was not until later in the decade that comprehensive city scenes emerged in his work, as seen in his famous 1959 work Cityscape. The current lot is thus particularly unique – with its spartan scene it recalls the more minimalist compositions of the mid-1950s and yet in color it aligns itself with the later ‘Grey Period’.

From his early Paris portraits, through to the final ‘Metascapes’ he created in India, color and color orchestration were of central focus to Padamsee. It was, however, in his entirely grey works, that he formulated a new color paradigm. Through creating shades of grey that mirrored a color spectrum, Padamsee plumbed the depths of tone, in a way that was unachievable when using a sweeping color palette. Despite sharing comparable grayscale hues, the current lot is set apart from the works of Padamsee’s ‘Grey Period’ by its stark execution. In works such as Cityscape (1959), Padamsee’s former defined, dark outlines have disappeared. The current lot is from a very brief and distinctive period of Padamsee’s artistic production, where the artist painted with an assertiveness of line not seen again in his work.

Ultimately, the current lot typifies the key motivation of Padamsee: to evoke the isolation and loneliness that are central to the human condition. This was the defining aspect of Padamsee’s œuvre and the present work is a particularly astonishing example. In the barren scene of house, tree, moon and hill, the marked isolation of each component is made all the more pronounced by Padamsee’s bold outlines. The only human presence in the work is the viewer, who is confronted by a desolate, unearthly scene. The painting’s lone moon, another key motif in Padamsee’s work, does not even glow as seen in the artist’s ‘Metascapes’. Rather it hangs above the scene, as a lonely observer of the world below.