17 January, 2010

THE FACT that Krishen Khanna is handsome and possesses an attractive demeanour even at the age of 84 is only one part of his personality.

The fact that this veteran artist treats art writers, separated by more than half- a- century from his time, with respect deserving for someone equal, also does not sum him up completely. The fact that he — more like a gentlemanly grand uncle — goes through his life story in impeccable and enviable English benefiting from years of interest in the subject, is only but a glimpse into the interests that have made him a man of such fine tastes.

What, however, can attempt to sum up the life and times of Krishen Khanna is a story told by his canvases that he has been painting for several decades, most of which are now coming up for view in Delhi in a retrospective show by Saffronart, the Mumbai- based online art auction house owned by Dinesh and Minal Vazirani.

“ A retrospective is a nice way of looking back at your own work because one has done so much that quite a bit of it is forgotten.

Im proud that Ive excellent memory but even then, there are some canvases that Im seeing now and feeling surprised about. Of course, one has to be totally bonkers if one were to forget something like the Maurya Mural ( 3,000 sq- ft, titled The Procession of Life , done for the ITC Maurya- Sheraton hotel) or the 7 ft X 80 ft mural I created for the Taj Chola in Chennai, on the immigration of the Cholas to South East Asia,” laughs Khanna. On a serious note, he adds, “ When painters have lived through that length of time, they have a lot to look back to. A retrospective is not about the high peaks of your career, it is about the lock, stock and barrel of it all.” The show with over a 100 canvases promises to be one of the most definitive glimpses into the career graph of the artist. What, however, it may not be able to tell is that his early years were packed with as much adventure as anyone could have asked for. Born in 1925 in Faisalabad ( Pakistan), Khanna grew up in Lahore before moving to Windsor ( England) to study at the Imperial Services College. He set sail for home as a 17- year- old during the World War II, slept on the deck, saw his roommate die of tuberculosis while still on the ship (“ he had to be buried at sea as he died four days before we reached Bombay”) and lost his luggage after anchoring in Bombay, though he retrieved it later.

“ I lost all the money trying to locate my luggage and had to borrow from friends to reach Lahore,” he recalls. That wasnt the end of it, though. Soon, the Partition dislodged his family who now moved to Shimla. A young Khanna came to the then Bombay looking for work and joined the Grindlays Bank. “ I got that job through a person who recognised my school tie. When I was asked in the interview about banking, I replied, Perhaps you have heard that there has been a Partition in this country. He smiled and there I was,” narrates Khanna.

It was the move to Bombay that laid the seeds of his eventual career as an artist. Soon enough he was hobnobbing with the vibrant arts community of the metro, eventually joining the Progressive Artists Group founded in 1947 by S. H. Raza and F. N. Souza. The group counted M. F. Husain, S. K. Bakre, Akbar Padamsee and Tyeb Mehta as its early members. “ Along with painting, I was also buying art simultaneously,” says Khanna, who is a self- taught artist.

Pointing to a Husain canvas hanging on the wall behind him in his drawing room, he says, “ I bought this one, depicting Holi, for Rs 350 from Keku Gandhis shop while I was returning from bank in the evening. But the first Husain that I bought is in my bedroom and I had picked it up for Rs 50.” An avid collector, Khanna says he has almost half- a- dozen canvases by Husain which he had bought for Rs 350 to Rs 400.

“ Besides Husain, Ive canvases of many other artists and we also exchanged a lot,” he adds.

With the art world of Mumbai then fermenting with energy and ideas, the banker soon found his true vocation and took the plunge.

What was the banking worlds loss was a definitive gain for the arts. Or as Husain puts it, speaking on Khannas retrospective from Qatar, “ I would say that when Khanna began painting big time, we lost an important collector.” The tumultuous events of his early life, especially the Partition, however, left an indelible print on Khannas psyche. The Partition is one of the most frequently recurring themes in his paintings and continues to be so even now. His most recent work that he has executed in Delhi is titled Going Out , and is again on the refugees. “ Ive been a refugee forever; was a refugee when I came back from England and was a refugee during the Partition too,” he says.

In the lifes journey so far, Khannas constant companion has been his wife Renu, who must be credited for keeping him going on with his passion even when he briefly got enchanted with advertising. “ Shes been my backbone,” says Khanna of his wife who taught at Modern School, Barakhamba Road, for 25 years even as she raised their three children.

The eloquence with which Khanna shares his life story owes a lot to his abiding interest in English literature; after all, he is a graduate in English literature from Government College, Lahore and books by English and Urdu poets/ authors adorn the same mantelpiece against which hang canvases by his friends.

A retrospective show is a good excuse to listen to it all from the artist himself. As for his paintings, an actual visit to the upcoming show becomes imperative at any rate.

Krishen Khannas retrospective opens at Rabindra Bhavan, Lalit Kala Akademi, Feroz Shah Road, on January 23 and will be on view till February 5, 11 a. m. to 7 p. m.

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