Krishen Khanna
(1925)
Emmaus
Krishen Khanna's art focuses on the human figure. The subject is often that of the subaltern: a term used by postcolonial critic Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak to denote a class of people that were "ostracised, hapless victims of society." (Gayatri Sinha, Krishen Khanna: A Critical Biography, New Delhi: Vadehra Art Gallery, 2001, p. 98) Within this context and beyond, Khanna is concerned with the individual and his particular condition in...
Krishen Khanna's art focuses on the human figure. The subject is often that of the subaltern: a term used by postcolonial critic Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak to denote a class of people that were "ostracised, hapless victims of society." (Gayatri Sinha, Krishen Khanna: A Critical Biography, New Delhi: Vadehra Art Gallery, 2001, p. 98) Within this context and beyond, Khanna is concerned with the individual and his particular condition in society. Band musicians, waiters at roadside tea- stalls or dhabas , and labourers sleeping beneath trucks-subjects who are otherwise overlooked-gain dignity in his works. Emmaus is situated towards the end of Khanna's series of Christ paintings, which began in the late 1960s. They were often allegorical, in Khanna's vocabulary, for the political turmoil that emerged during the Emergency in India in the 1970s. "Through a lack of physical detail, the paintings aspire towards a quality of timelessness... Khanna is probably the first painter of the unromanticised subaltern who does not lend it the redeeming rhythms of his contemporary Husain or else the abstracted spaces and forms of Tyeb Mehta. The manacled Christ... or the rough men supping with Christ at Emmaus show a kinship with his exhausted labourers sleeping beneath their dusty trucks." (Gayatri Sinha, Krishen Khanna: The Embrace of Love , Ahmedabad: Mapin Publishing Pvt. Ltd., 2005, p. 17)
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Lot
40
of
87
EVENING SALE | NEW DELHI, LIVE
8 SEPTEMBER 2016
Estimate
Rs 70,00,000 - 90,00,000
$106,065 - 136,365
Winning Bid
Rs 1,14,00,000
$172,727
(Inclusive of Buyer's Premium)
ARTWORK DETAILS
Krishen Khanna
Emmaus
Signed and inscribed 'K Khanna / KRISHEN KHANNA / "EMMAUS"' (on the reverse)
2006
Oil on canvas
71.5 x 51.5 in (181.5 x 130.7 cm)
PROVENANCE: Acquired directly from the artist Property of a Gentleman, New Delhi
EXHIBITED:Krishen Khanna , London: Saffronart in association with Osborne Samuel and Berkeley Square Gallery, 19-24 March 2007Krishen Khanna: A RETROSPECTIVE , New Delhi: Saffronart, 23 January - 5 February 2010 PUBLISHED: Norbert Lynton, Gayatri Sinha and Ranjit Hoskote eds., Krishen Khanna: Images in My Time , Ahmedabad: Mapin Publishing Pvt. Ltd., 2007, pp. 127, 136-137 (illustrated)
Category: Painting
Style: Figurative
ARTWORK SIZE:
Height of Figure: 6'