Akbar Padamsee an inveterate modernist was born in 1928 and received his diploma from the Sir J.J. School of Art in Mumbai. He left for Paris in 1951 and lived and worked there till his return in 1967. Among several shows he has had major retrospectives in Mumbai and New Delhi in 1980. He has participated in the exhibitions, Seven Indian Painters, Gallery One, London in 1958 Intemational Biennales at Venice; Sao Paulo and Tokyo; Museum of Modem Art, Oxford, 198 1; Royal Academy of Arts, Festival of India, London 1982;Indian Artists in France, Paris 1985 among others. In 1967 he was invited as Artist-in Residence by the Stout State University, Wisconsin, USA.

Padamsee was awarded the Jawaharlal Nehru Fellowship in 1969 with which he started an inter-arts workshop in Mumbai. To this day it is remembered for the creative stimulation it provided to artists and film makers. Mani Kaul's film 'Duvidha', Padamsee's own films' Events in a Cloud Chamber and Syzygy workshop and Kumar Shahani's short film were a result of the workshop. A student of Sanskrit he is well versed in texts like the Upanishads.

Padamsee's forms bounded by the line and created from an assemblage of strokes on the surface are both real and transcendent. His experiments with the Chinese method of 'ku fu' have also lent his figures an agile grace. If the forms carry an expression of ineffable sadness, there are periods when he paints landscapes which express the grandeur of infinite time. In recent years he had painted Diptychs which are relative versions of the same landscape.

Padamsee lives and works in Mumbai.