Artist Sudhir Patwordon’s works of 50 years of rebel, cities: manufactured, broken – are a journey through the artist’s Ovure for 50 years of drawing 50 years in the city, to find himself from the 20s, when he was starting out, when he was starting out, currently, when as a septuagenian, when he has made a place for himself as a contenow Indian artist.
As a Durbar Hall moves through two floors of the Art Center, where the paintings are on the show, no one can accept the privilege of the show offering. The opportunity to talk to man especially behind work. Sudhir Patwordan, a long-time museum for Mumbai, the city and its people-people of local people, and those who live in spaces are not ‘visible’.
Untitled Photo Credit: Thulasi Kakkat
His engagement with the city as an artist began in the 1970s when he moved from Pune to Mumbai (then Bombay), who completed his medical education. Sudhir, who retired as a radiologist in 2005, says, “I decided that I wanted to become an artist, so I went to Bombay,”, who retired as a radiologist in 2005. As much as a culture was a shock of a culture in terms of the sheer number of Mumbai people, the city never stayed outside Pune, a deep impact on the artist, structurally left a deep impact.
Therefore, the architecture of the city informs an important part of its work so much that it has come to define Sudhir Patvordon’s artistic Ovre. The show’s curator R. Shiv Kumar, calls his relationship with the city and its people as “reflective thinker and an active conversation, not a passive crossgleer”. In addition to several solo shows, he has participated in national and international exhibitions including the show in Oxford, UK (1982); Contemporary Indian Art, Festival of India, London (1982); And Cup de Koir, Geneva (1987). Their paintings are part of public and private collections such as Museum of Modern Art (New York), Kiran Nadar Museum of Art (New Delhi), National Gallery of Modern Art (New Delhi and Mumbai), Jahangir Nicolson Collection (Mumbai) and Pibody Essex Museum (US).
Iranian Restaurant (1977) | Photo Credit: Thulasi Kakkat
The retrospective, he confesses, the memory lane is a trip below. Keeping one together, he informs, is a very big task to work with private collections and galleries. Although a retrospective, walking through Sol City, was held in 2019 in NGMA, Mumbai, this is the first time he has seen some of his old works at one place. He calls it a self-education, thus assessing his journey.
One more day in Old City (2017). Photo Credit: Thulasi Kakkat
While the surface mostly shows its recent functions, there are many earlier works in the first floor, which are largely pictures. This innings is comprehensible after its Bombay begins. He paints what he sees, works with focus on people including stunning oil on canvas Iranian restaurant, truckWorker series, Man with cylinder And this Running Woman. The city then becomes a focal point around which people are kept around. In the 1980s and after the 1990s, we see architecture looking for a place on the canvas and people see the city struggling with the city. Clearing, station roadAnd Balcony For example.
After 2020, the work takes on more arrivals and introspections. Although their earlier pictures stir with life, they are marked with a certain solidity. The current tasks are an undertaking of inconvenience struggle over time and the way the city was growing.
“After changing the epidemic Mumbai, it does not seem how it happened earlier. Although the old city is attracted to a new, the roads are gone. The roads are constantly dug; there are metro columns everywhere …” Discanes with the city, he says, he says, “I started feeling first,” I started feeling it from around that time.
2002 riots, to be accurate. “The relationship between the people was broken, due to which the conversation was reduced. It inspired the role of intense self-examination, and questioned me what can be done about art, art means art. One realizes that the art cannot change the world but still there is a hope …”
War zone studio Specially telling. The painting shows the artist’s studio in the middle of it in disarray with a synchron. He “talks about being disappointed for a huge time, when the artist reaches a state when the studio becomes the site of destruction.”
Talking about painting, he confesses to attack by self-doubt. “As someone gets older, all these suspects. It asks you uncomfortable questions. Just as I ask myself … ‘Why did I think myself as a spokesperson of the working class? Why think they do not have a voice?
Premilly city: Built, broken, presented by Kerala Lalitakala Academy in collaboration with foreign art gallery, on 28 September along with Durbar Hall Art Center.
Published – September 20, 2025 11:00 AM IST