Lot 21
Krishen Khanna (India, b. 1925) Untitled (Female Figure)
11 June 2015, 14:30 BST
London, New Bond StreetSold for £16,250 inc. premium
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Krishen Khanna (India, b. 1925)
Untitled (Female Figure)
Untitled (Female Figure)
Oil on canvas
Signed and dated '58 lower right
Further inscribed 'NO. 8' on reverse
105.5 x 51cm (41 9/16 x 20 1/16in).
Signed and dated '58 lower right
Further inscribed 'NO. 8' on reverse
105.5 x 51cm (41 9/16 x 20 1/16in).
Footnotes
Provenance:
Collection of Dr and Mrs Ian Little
Acquired by the late Dr Ian Little from the Kumar Gallery, New Delhi, 1959
In 1953 Khanna moved with his family to Madras, the works from this period, aptly named the 'Madras series'. Khanna was enthralled by Carnatic music and befriended some of the most renowned musicians of this field. Gayatri Sinha notes that this period showed a 'personal contentment and greater lyricism than Krishen had ever expressed before in painting'. (Gayatri Sinha, Krishen Khanna: A Critical Biography, New Delhi, 2001, p. 48).
Khanna painted dynamic scenes of rapturous music, a cacophony of sound in brush strokes. At this time he also painted figurative works sharing a similar impassioned fervour. This painting shows a nude female form indistinctly carrying an item above her head. Khanna has taken an everyday pastoral scene and imbibed it with the gusto of his musical works.
Khanna formally resigned from the bank in 1961 to become a full time artist. This work, painted in 1958, in the final years of his banking career, is a rare insight into the early stages of Krishen Khanna's artist output. Awarded the Rockefellar Fellowship in 1962, the Lalit Academy National Award and the fellowship of the Council of Economics and Cultural Affairs, New York, both in 1965, Khanna was instantly recognised as a pivotal figure in Indian art.