H.A Gade

 

Hari Ambadas Gade is considered one of the first abstract expressionist painters of post-independence India and is one of the founders of the progressive art movement in India. He revolted against the traditions of academic art, which the British education system had clamped on Indian art education.Born in Amravati on, 1917, he graduated in science from the University of Nagpur, Maharashtra in 1938. It was in Jabalpur, where he went for his Bachelor of Educator examinations, that the artist began painting landscapes.In 1946, Gade submitted two of his paintings at a national exhibition in Nagpur. One of them, an old man with a white flowing beard, won a prize, and the artist joined the Nagpur School of Art to pursue his Diploma in Art in 1949, and later, a master's degree (1950).It was around this time that Gade came in touch with artist S H Raza, who gave him a lot of advice on painting landscapes. Gade began by painting watercolors, but he later switched to oils on canvas. He used both the palette knife and brush in his paintings.He was strongly affected by the ugly slums that had sprung up across Mumbai in the 1950s. In his paintings, this abject poverty and dirty slums crop up once in a while. From the lush greenery of Kerala, to the stark landscape of Udaipur to the dense forests, his landscapes are highly prized. In the recent past, he did a series on rains and monsoon greens.Gade first exhibited in Mumbai in 1947, and then in 1948, at the annual exhibition of the Bombay Art Society. In 1949, he was invited to exhibit at the Salon-de-Mai in Paris, and in the same year he also showed his works at Stanford University. In 1954, Gade's paintings were exhibited at the Venice Biennale.H A Gade passed away in the year 2001. 

His exhibit with us is are two oil on boards made in 1954 and 1962.