He used figures from Hindu and Christian myths to depict the turmoil of the 70s: midnight arrests, censorship of the press; Repression and enmity of the state machinery
Artist Krishan Khanna has a new project. He takes out his phone to show him the beautiful sculpture being built in England based on his design. It is inspired by a particular famous event in Ramayana, He insists that it is badly painted by painters and not by sculptors.
The sculpture transcends time and space to simultaneously evoke Persian, Welsh and Indian mythology. The fact that I see it a day before Dussehra, nor is it the fact that although we celebrate Rama’s defeat of Ravana, a lot of creatures fought with him. It was an army of animals, reportedly with no agency or power, that won the war for Rama.
Khanna points to the painting he is working on in his drawing room. This a. black and white translation of Bandwala on a circle. “My son says I should paint it, but it should be Bandwala going home at night. There’s no need for color, right?”
Khanna has exceptional work in pre-independence and post-independence India. He first copied ‘The Last Supper’ at the age of seven, which means he’s been a performer for 89 years. “I can’t live without them,” he says, as I ask about Hussein and Padamsee on their walls. When I see him for clarification, he replies that he cannot live without painting. But the painting and his companions in the Progressive Artists Group (PAG) are equally compelling to Khanna. He was always inextricably tied with PAG, a group of artists that included MF Hussain, FN Souza, SH Raza, KH Ara, Ram Kumar, Bal Chhabra, Akbar Padamsee and Tyeb Mehta.
“Each of us worked very differently. There was no instruction on the types of painting. We were all poets and existed sociable. For example, Hussein had an exhibition in Tokyo and he lacked paintings. Chhabra sent him his collection of Husain’s works. When Hussain came back and offered him the money for which the painting was sold, he declined, saying that he would give the painting to Hussain. Individuals could have believed,” says Khanna. “A Bada Sahib, But he was big hearted and honest. Everyone was an extraordinary person. now I’m alone “.
- Born in 1925 in Lyallpur (now in Pakistan). Moved to Shimla after partition
- Worked at Grindlay Bank until 1961
- In 1949, Homi J. for the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research. First painting sold to Bhabha
- Rockefeller Fellowship in 1962, Padma Shri in 1990, Padma Bhushan in 2011
Reason Khanna, unlike the rest of the Progressives, can be considered a Bada Sahib This was because he was a banker for 12 years before resigning to become a painter. He came from a family of teachers; At the age of 13 he went on a scholarship to attend the Imperial Service College in Windsor and returned to Multan four years later as World War II broke out and he was fired. His family immigrated to India in 1947 and by 1948 he had secured a job at Grindlays Bank and moved to Bombay where he met the Progressives. He was transferred by the bank to Madras and Kanpur, while he continued painting on the shore and only took advantage of it in 1961 and left Grindlays. He left the farewell party, his bank colleagues threw him to go straight to a party that his artist friends had thrown in celebration. And from there he took off into a new life, first on a fellowship in the US and then in a resettlement area in Delhi with his extended family in a small house called Bhogal as a full-time artist.
But like the rest of the progressives he was not only creating a new international idiom in painting, in contrast to the more figurative Bengal masters in these dominant days. They, especially Khanna and Hussain, were also telling stories of newly independent India as it was stricken by war, poverty, scarcity and migration. In the early days of their friendship, Hussain and Khanna used to sketch refugee families at the New Delhi railway station. Bhogal’s wandering population and its proximity to the crowded tombs of Nizamuddin helped Khanna to use the changing character of Delhi as his personal observatory and tell stories of displaced refugees and humanity on the streets: men in dhabas; tired, sleeping people; Workers crowd behind the truck; NS Bandwala In his flashy uniform which was reminiscent of the princes of the British era. He also used figures from Hindu and Christian myths to depict the turmoil of the 1970s: midnight arrests, censorship of the press; Repression and enmity of the state machinery. The differing styles of progressive people can be compared in fact by their vastly different treatment of the same biblical allegory. The Christ of Khanna became one of the shrines still found around Nizamuddin, indicating resistance against oppression by the oppressive system.
Khanna’s political lens is perhaps in such an obvious place that no one notices it: the lobby of the ITC Maurya Sheraton Hotel in Delhi where he both painted the dome over four years, and was involved in curating the collections of some India’s greatest art. While the hotel was modeled on the ancient Buddhist Chaitya cave temples in Karla, Maharashtra, the heart of the hotel is the dazzling mural of Khanna called the ‘Great Procession’ in the lobby. In the words of the artist, it depicts “the great procession of India and Indian life”. The scenes depicted are typically Indian, including tea sellers and gossiping old women. There is even a portrait of Khushwant Singh, an old friend of Khanna.
mixing past and present
Khanna uses a three-tiered curved surface to blend scenes from the Maurya past and present. As Khanna puts it, “[it]… uses events from ordinary daily life to show a continuous journey with no beginning and no end. If you look carefully you can find yourself in it… One side of the dome isn’t painted, so if you’re standing there, you’re a part of it.” While it’s possible in the lobby, it’s the 12th Far more evident on the floor where you find yourself in a dimension equal to the girl painted on the dome. Another friend, Manjeet Bawa, will climb upstairs to help Khanna paint parts of the dome. ₹5 to Khanna Received payment of lakhs but eventually earned only ₹1 lakh after expenses.
But Khanna has taken care of himself Bandwala For some time, as they are called, depicting Indian preoccupation with the pomp and relics of the British Raj, as well as telling stories of groups of men who prepare to perform at weddings. Arun Wadhera, who has known Khanna since the inception of the Vadehra Art Gallery, says that Khanna’s preoccupation with form and colour. “NS bandWallahsLike Hussain’s horses, his bulging cheeks and thick lines are interesting, but we shouldn’t try to overestimate what we want in an artist’s work, especially one of greats like Khanna. Instead, we should look at form and colour. But I still believe that Khanna is one of those great artists who narrates the stories of common people through his brush.”
Like the miniatures I love, Khanna speaks with few strokes. But the forms and colors they use are also enticing. His work is like that of Picasso – it has become simpler over time but it is a metaphor for an era.
The author is the author of the fantasy series Kalki’s Weaponsand specialize in South Asian arts and culture.
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