Just watching people walking by and the hustle and bustle of traffic and the city going about its business is the material from which I draw

Although his lifetime’s work can be seen as an unstoppable anthol­ogy of Mumbai’s hope, aspiration and struggle, he has also documented the most tumultuous mo­ments in the city’s recent history.

Marathi magazine Magova ,

In my own way, I have done my best to use art to tell the stories of social struggle and the problems of being human and more importantly, to take art back to the public

From the 1992 riots to the 2020 migrant crisis, Patwardhan’s empathetic eye has tirelessly drawn attention to po­litical conflicts, economic inequalities and social injustice

‘Is this enough?’ Through­out my career, I have tried to overcome the guilt of choosing this so-called elitist pursuit of art instead of direct action. But in my own way, I think I have done my best to use art to tell the stories of social struggle and the problems of being human and more importantly, to take art back to the public.”

Spend a few hours in Patwardhan’s company and it becomes clear that he’s always been a painter of people more than places. Even though the landscape, architecture and street life of Mumbai has found vivid expression in his works over the decades, it is figuration and the human condition that remains the cornerstone of his art