Of Friendships: Krishna Reddy & His World: Experimenter - Colaba, Mumbai

Krishna Reddy’s (1925–2018) career, which spanned over seven decades, was defined by constantly pushing boundaries not only through his artistic practice but also in thought and philosophy. Reddy pursued a lifelong pedagogical approach and most importantly, built friendships that emphasised his influence across generations of artists and thinkers, who were either his teachers, contemporaries or students. Of Friendships: Krishna Reddy & His World, celebrates some of the many lifelong friendships forged. This exhibition presents key rare and early works of Reddy, alongside works of Stanley William Hayter, Zarina, Ramkinkar Baij, Shirley Witebsky, Mona Saudi, Judith Blum Reddy, Benode Behari Mukherjee, Gabor Peterdi and Nalini Malani.

Steeped in a profound and sensitive understanding of nature, that was instilled in him by his influential teachers Nandalal Bose and Ramkinkar Baij at Rabindranath Tagore’s Santiniketan in the mid 1940’s – Reddy’s process was equally informed by the catastrophic impact of the Bengal famine and Partition on human lives, as well as ancient eastern philosophies imbibed through close association with his erstwhile teacher, J. Krishnamurti. These lived experiences enabled Reddy to be an empathetic and discerning artist, teacher and humanist as he traversed the world over the next decades, always challenging the limits that confronted him in his practice – materially, philosophically and technically. Through his travels Reddy constantly forged deep friendships, first with artists such as Joan Miró and Alberto Giacometti at Stanley William Hayter’s Atelier 17, which was the crucible of artistic creativity in post-war Paris. Thereafter, from 1976, as an intrinsic part of the avant-garde modern art movement in SoHo, New York, Reddy’s loft and studio became a place of refuge, learning, debate and discourse for artists, thinkers and writers until he passed away in 2018.

Reddy’s strong influence was felt outside the usual centres of art of the mid-twentieth century - from alliances with other artists in Eastern Europe to collaborations with artistic and political movements in North Africa, Krishna Reddy was an early transglobal artist of his generation. Art Historian Simone Wille in her essay on Reddy’s transregional mobility writes, “By following Krishna Reddy’s route from pre- and post-partition India to postwar Paris and from there to Central Europe and by reading his artistic practice in response to mobility requires attention to transcultural artistic contacts, encounters, and movement that often went in unexpected geographical directions. While this can contribute to a rethinking of the fabric of cultural entanglements, it highlights the importance of the role that networks, platforms, new alliances, and connections played in the decades following the Second World War.”[1]

Reddy was an adept draughtsman with an incredible eye for detail, a formidable sculptor who adapted his knowledge into engraving his metal printing plates, in a way that forever transformed printmaking processes. He converged his diverse strands of knowledge – of sculpture and painting, the delicate alchemy of materials and chemicals and his deep philosophical thinking into the pioneering process that he introduced to the world of art – simultaneous multicolour viscosity printing. “Reading Krishna Reddy’s treatment of the metal printing plate and his material inquiry in relation to his artistic route between differing political, ideological and cultural contexts from Santiniketan to Paris, Ljubljana, and St. Margarethen can then potentially point to the importance of renegotiating the cultural plurality of modernism under the condition of transcultural contact between unexpected locations and protagonists”, continues Wille in her essay.[2]

Anchoring a part of the main gallery is a series of three iconic prints, The Great Clown (Le Grand Clown). By juxtaposing variations of the large print, side by side, the mastery of Reddy’s skill and his handling of materials and inks is immediately evident. Highlighting the hand of the artist through the process, the resulting nuances make each print uniquely different from the other. Adjacently, a series of early prints from the 1950’s and 1960’s establishes Reddy's dexterity in the control of the process, while also revealing his range of thought in their making. For Reddy, the metal plates that formed the matrix for printing, were like sculptures that he engraved upon with a variety of hand and machine tools, controlling their minute depths to fractions of millimetres. A body of such metal plates, made over his long career and rarely seen in public, are on view in the gallery. In another gallery room, one of his early sculptures is surrounded by rare etchings which reveal Reddy’s lifelong pursuit to understand and negotiate with the gestures and movements of the human body through the lens of abstraction. Resonant with the tactile cadence of life force, the etchings underscore Reddy’s intuitive and profound understanding of the world and people around him. Works by other artists and friends, students and teachers such as Stanley William Hayter, Judith Blum Reddy, Zarina, Nalini Malani, Ramkinkar Baij and Shirley Witebsky – all artist exchanges that remained in Krishna’s New York studio – are displayed alongside Reddy’s prints and rare early etchings. 

Marking an early beginning to Reddy’s centenary year, Of Friendships: Krishna Reddy & His World underscores the greatness of his visionary practice, his enduring influence as an artist and a teacher and most importantly, celebrates the spirit of his generosity and love shared through the numerous friendships he nurtured over the years.