Sudhir Patwardhan considers himself a painter of people. Born in Pune, Maharashtra in 1949, he graduated in Medicine from the Armed Forces Medical College, Pune in 1972. Patwardhan, a practicing radiologist, runs a clinic in a modest part of Thane in Mumbai.
He held his first solo exhibition of paintings in Delhi at the famous theatre personality E.Alkazi`s art gallery Art Heritage in 1979. This exhibition was then held in Jehangir Art Gallery, Mumbai. Since then he has held more than 15 solo exhibitions in all major galleries, including Jehangir Art Gallery, Mumbai (1979,1984, 1989, 1994, 1999, 2002), Art Heritage, Delhi (1990), 1994 – Gallery Chemould (1994), Mumbai, Vadehra Art Gallery, Delhi (1999), Sakshi Gallery, Banglore and Mumbai (2001, 2002).
Sudhir Patwardhan`s works centres around one poetically monumental panorama of an urban and natural environment. The recent exhibition (2002) of his works at the Sakshi Gallery centred around one poetically monumental panorama of an urban and natural environment. The mostly charcoal drawings on paper were like instant notations from what happens among working-class people on city streets, otherwise more or less sketchy studies done from photographs.
Pathwardhan has continued to evolve his figurative style in expressionist drawings on one hand and large complex oil paintings of town and cityscapes on the other. His work has been selected for major exhibitions of contemporary Indian art in London, New York, Paris and Geneva, among other cities.
Elaborating on the thought process that goes into his work, he notes: “I do faces seen with a certain intimacy. Each of these, finished within an hour, gives me a feeling of satisfaction and accomplishment. From the innumerable persons encountered, a detail of an eye or a nose, or a tilt of the head has struck a cord. The note is then rapidly and vigorously expanded. During this process the emerging face has to fight against my impulse to engulf and dissolve it. The stereotype head and the remembered look of distrust are allies of otherness. With their help the face will attain certain autonomy. But it will not shake off my attachment.
