mumbai famous modernist artist akbar padamsee passed away in coimbatore on monday at the age of 91 tributes on social media mourned the loss of the legendary mumbai painter also a sculptor photographer engraver and lithographer who believed an artist needed the mind of both a mathematician and a poet the jj school of art graduate hit the headlines in his first solo itself at the jehangir art gallery when the police arrested him for obscenity the bone of contention was a painting titled lovers that showed a mans hand touching a breast he refused to back down and it was only after testimony by his fellow progressive m f husain and art critic rudolf von leyden that the judge cleared him despite that early brush with controversy padamsee remained relatively lowprofile as compared to his contemporaries its only in the last 10 years that prices for his work have been climbing the 22yearold one of eight siblings among whom was ad guru alyque padamsee moved to paris when his friend syed haider raza bagged a scholarship in 1951 the french sojourn deeply influenced his artistic journeysome of his more famous works are from the grey period when padamsee at the age of 31 decided to go monochromatic i used black and white and grey because i wanted to understand what colour means padamsee said in an interview he did return to colour and his experiments resulted in distinctive earthy metascapes asked how he started on the metascapes padamsee who had a deep interest in sanskrit and spirituality said the idea came to him while reading kalidasa the controlled cadence of the colours breaks into a throbbing intensity as the artist in his most masterly works evokes infinite time and space wrote art critic yashodhara dalmia about his work he explored a wide range of mediums and remained experimental and individualistic throughout his illustrious career padamsees quasispiritual bent of mind expressed itself in various genres couples stilllife grey works mirror images across a range of media including oil plastic emulsion water colour sculpture printmaking computer graphics and photography later in his career padamsee used computer graphics and made two short abstract films titled syzygy and events in a cloud chamber where he animated a set of geometric drawingshis work was exhibited in numerous exhibitions in india and abroad in 2010 he was awarded the padma bhushan other awards include a gold medal from the lalit kala akademi in 1962 jd rockefeller foundation fellowship in 1965 kalidas samman by the government of madhya pradesh in 1997 lalit kala ratna puraskar in 2004 the dayawati modi award in 2007 roopdhar award by bombay art society in 2008 and kailash lalit kala award in 2010the hole that his departure left moved many akbar padamsee has passed into the ages i lose another early mentor from whose guidance in matters both philosophical and practical i benefited greatly in my early 20s whenever we met over the years we