Known for his abstract expressionist landscapes, Hari Ambadas Gade was one of the six founding members of the influential Progressive Artists’ Group and remained its part till its dissolution in the late 1950s.
Gade was born on August 19, 1917, in Amravati, Maharashtra and studied science and mathematics at the University of Nagpur. He simultaneously enrolled at the Nagpur School of Art. He also taught at Jabalpur’s Spencer Training College for five years before completing a diploma and a master’s in art in 1950. He started making watercolour landscapes while in Jabalpur. Around this time, S. H. Raza, a co-founder of the Progressive Artists’ Group, guided him on the nuances of landscape painting. He is known to have travelled across the country to capture different landscapes, covering monsoons in Kerala and arid topography of Rajasthan.
Gradually, Gade shifted to oils and eventually his visual language evolved as well. He experimented with geometrical shapes, which may be due to his science background, but it also allowed him to incorporate then popular cubist idiom in his works. Besides his expressionist landscapes, Gade also made still-lifes, nudes and portraits. His works remain especially remarkable for the visual impact of colours that he was able to produce.
An important aspect of Gade’s art in early years of Independence was his comment on the rapidly changing urbanscape of Bombay, with its fast-paced development alongside rise of slums.
He exhibited extensively across India and abroad. Among honours that he was bestowed with include Bombay Art Society’s gold medal in 1956, and Maharashtra State Art Exhibition award and another one at Saigon Biennale in 1962. His works are part of prominent collections such as that of the Lalit Kala Akademi and National Gallery of Modern Art, New Delhi, and Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Mumbai. He passed away on December 16, 2001.