A retrospective of Sudhir Patwardhan, curated by R. Siva Kumar
Presented by Kerala Lalithakala Akademi in collaboration with Vadehra Art Gallery.
The Kerala Lalithakala Akademi, in collaboration with Vadehra Art Gallery, proudly presents Cities: Built, Broken – 50 Years of Picturing Life in the City, a landmark retrospective of renowned Indian painter Sudhir Patwardhan. Curated by eminent art historian R. Siva Kumar, the exhibition opens on Monday, 8 September 2025, at Durbar Hall Art Centre, Ernakulam, with a preview at 5:30 pm followed by an exhibition walkthrough at 6:00 pm. The show continues until 28 September 2025.
About the Artist – Sudhir Patwardhan
Born in 1949, Sudhir Patwardhan is one of India’s most significant contemporary artists. Trained as a radiologist, he lived and practiced medicine in Thane between 1975 and 2005, while simultaneously developing a formidable artistic practice. His dual life—as doctor and artist—deepened his sensitivity to the struggles, resilience, and complexities of everyday urban existence.
Patwardhan’s canvases are filled with the human and architectural landscapes of Thane and Mumbai, where the lives of working-class people, migrants, and the emergent middle class unfold against an ever-changing cityscape. His brush has consistently rendered the drama of urban life—its crowds, chaos, solidarity, and solitude—while maintaining a tone of empathy and quiet observation.
Over the past five decades, Patwardhan has created a poetic panorama of India’s urban growth, blending realism with painterly imagination. His works are not just visual documents; they are reflections on memory, community, and the fragile balance between the built environment and the lives it contains.
Cities: Built, Broken
This exhibition, curated by R. Siva Kumar, offers a sweeping view of Patwardhan’s practice, spanning fifty years of painting life in the city.
- Built: His early works capture the rise of new urban settlements, the vertical growth of Mumbai, and the construction of middle-class dreams amidst crumbling chawls and expanding suburbs.
- Broken: Equally present are the fractures of city life—displacement, alienation, and the precarious existence of the marginalized. His paintings confront us with the paradox of cities: spaces of opportunity that also carry within them deep inequalities.
The show invites viewers to reflect on how cities shape human experiences and how art can serve as a witness to their transformations.
About the Curator – R. Siva Kumar
Professor of art history at Visva-Bharati University, R. Siva Kumar is a leading scholar of modern Indian art. Known for his authoritative writings on Santiniketan artists such as Nandalal Bose, Ramkinkar Baij, and Benode Behari Mukherjee, Siva Kumar brings an equally sharp lens to contemporary practices like Patwardhan’s. His curatorial vision for Cities: Built, Broken situates Patwardhan’s work within the wider narrative of Indian modernism while emphasizing its relevance in today’s rapidly urbanizing world.
Exhibition Highlights
- A selection of iconic large-format canvases portraying Mumbai’s streets, workers, and neighborhoods.
- Works that document the politics of space—from construction sites to slums, flyovers to high-rises.
- Paintings that demonstrate Patwardhan’s evolution from figurative realism to compositions that merge architecture, body, and memory.
- An inaugural walkthrough with curator R. Siva Kumar and insights into the making of a practice that has spanned half a century.
Cities: Built, Broken is more than a retrospective; it is a journey through the soul of the Indian city. For fifty years, Sudhir Patwardhan has painted not just the appearance of cities, but the lives, dreams, and struggles that inhabit them. This exhibition stands as both a tribute to his artistic legacy and a reminder of the resilience and fragility that define urban existence.
