Laxman Pai : Life

Laxman Pai was born in Margao, Goa, in 1926. From 1943 until 1947, he attended Mumbai's Sir J.J. School of Art to study art. He received the esteemed Mayo medal.

Nature in all of her moods is shown in great detail on his paintings, and his human subjects are constantly shown in relation to their surroundings. Pai's entire body of work is uncommented and a reflection of his impressions. The majority of his work is based on unplanned interactions and events that have left an impression, whether positive or negative, on his memory. In his earlier works, he made liberal use of faces in profile and frontal bodies from ancient Egyptian statues. With each painting, the vivid colours that are so distinctive to his work become bolder and brighter, evoking the miniatures of early Indian art. Pai has produced a body of work that is as varied and lively as life itself.

He found inspiration in all forms of beauty, in all their varied incarnations. And in his writings, he used this natural beauty as the prism through which to examine a supreme spiritual consciousness. He saw art as a kind of pure spiritual expression, inspired solely by the soul and devoid of all ideologies and social commentary.

Nine of Laxman Pai's more than one hundred solo exhibitions—where he lived and worked for ten years, from 1951 to 1961—have taken place in Paris. London, Munich, Stuttgart, Bremen, New York, San Francisco, Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur, Singapore, New Delhi, Bombay, Calcutta, and Goa are just a few of the cities where he has held exhibitions in the past. Additionally, he took part in the Bribable San Paulo, Brazil event. Three Lalit Kala national prizes were given to Laxman Pai (1961, 1963, and 1972). He received the prestigious Padma Shri award from the Indian government in 1985.