Important Notice

Krishen Khanna's enduring interest in religious symbolism, particularly Christian imagery, has its roots in his childhood, and began with a reproduction of Da Vinci's Last Supper that his father brought home. His attempt to replicate it - at the mere age of seven - was both a first attempt at making art and the origin of his preoccupation with the theme. His education at the Imperial Services College in Windsor, which was largely... Krishen Khanna's enduring interest in religious symbolism, particularly Christian imagery, has its roots in his childhood, and began with a reproduction of Da Vinci's Last Supper that his father brought home. His attempt to replicate it - at the mere age of seven - was both a first attempt at making art and the origin of his preoccupation with the theme. His education at the Imperial Services College in Windsor, which was largely Christian in its values, and repeated visits to the National Gallery in London, where he encountered Piero della Francesca's Baptism of Christ, led to further fascination with the subject. This understanding would only be deepened during a six-month trip he took to London, Paris and Italy in 1954, which expanded his knowledge of Western, particularly religious, art.

After this initial fascination, Khanna returned to Christ-themed paintings in 1966, beginning with a Piet. 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, 2005, p. 17)

Often these works focussed on the less dramatic scenes from Christ's days on earth, such as the present lot depicting Thomas the Apostle with Christ after his resurrection. This episode, which appears in the Gospel of John (20:2429), states that Thomas, one of the Twelve Apostles, was sceptical that Christ had resurrected and appeared before the other ten apostles, demanding proof of this miracle. A week later, Christ appeared to him, and said: Reach hither thy finger, and behold my hands and be not faithless, but believing. Thomas, his doubts finally quelled, expresses his belief in his lord again. The final verse describes Christ reiterating the idea of pure faith, who says: Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed: blessed [are] they that have not seen, and [yet] have believed. This episode has been a popular subject in art since pre-Renaissance times, depicted in a diverse range of theological interpretations.

According to Norbert Lynton, Khanna's paintings depicting Christian imagery were narrative scenes, that Once seen, they are not easily forgotten: they burn their way into out store of significant images. The lack of ameliorating colours and expressive brushwork, the lack of all sweetening or distraction from the key performance, gives this art an incisive and enduring character. Shunning all supporting action and staging, Khanna turns these narrative events into timeless, locationless emblems that reflect on our own time and condemn all humanity. (Krishen Khanna, Norbert Lynton, Gayatri Sinha et al, Krishen Khanna: Images in My Time, Ahmedabad: Mapin Publishing and Hampshire: Lund Humphries, 2007, pp. 2223)

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