25 January, 2010

Mumbai: Padmashree Krishen Khanna’s largest ever retrospective show with 115 works opened in Delhi at the Lalit Kala Akademi on January 23. While the veteran artist tried his best to show all his significant works, he is disappointed that a few of his important works will not be shown at the exhibition due to administrative loopholes of various Indian organizations.

Krishen confirms, “There is an art work that shows Jesus Christ over supper with a believer and a non- believer. I thought that it would be really nice if I could show this work in my retrospective.

This work is with the Foundation of Jehangir Nicholson in Mumbai and I wrote to them, requesting them to send these works, but an authority objected and we haven’t got the same.”

Another work he was keen on is the one that had impressed the Queen of Netherlands. “It is with the Gallery of Modern Art and I had requested to get it. But nobody from there is interested in talking to me and the ‘request’ file is with the ministry somewhere I am not aware about.”

There are, however, many other works on display that have an interesting story to tell. Krishen recalls, “A painting of a girl combing her hair was created in the year 1956. It was shown in the first Biennale of Japan. A so-called friend of mine took the painting away in my absence and then after many years he brought it back to me, asking me for numbers of dealers and galleries who would be interested in buying it.” Krishen tried to tell the man that the painting didn’t reallybelong to him but he refused to listen. Krishen adds, “I finally had to buy my own painting for Rs12,000 and had to spend an additional amount of Rs5,000 to restore it.”

Another painting created the time when India was war-torn with Pakistan was initially bought by Air India to be gifted to Bangladesh.

Krishen says, “That never happened;I found that it was lying in the store house of Air India. Again, I bought my art work back and finally it was bought by a Jewish man. The painting is currently in the collection of the museum in Jerusalem.”

For now Krishen expects very little of the future. “My only plan is to live and paint,” he ends.

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