In Another Mode: Sudhir Patwardhan's Drawings 1970–2000

Curated by eminent art historian and curator Professor R. Siva Kumar, 'In Another Mode' offers an unprecedented encounter with over 200 drawings created by Sudhir Patwardhan between 1970 and 2000. While Patwardhan is universally celebrated for his monumental paintings of Mumbai’s working-class citizens and urban landscape, drawing has served as the artist's most immediate, unvarnished mode of thinking.

Spanning three pivotal decades of his career, this exhibition forms an intimate sociological archive: factory workers returning home on packed suburban trains, chai-stall vendors, street labourers, exhausted mothers, and contemplative self-portraits. Rooted in Marxist humanism and deep existential empathy, these works on paper reveal how Patwardhan elevates the quiet dignity of ordinary lives into enduring monuments of modern Indian art.