Krishna Reddy [1925 – 2018]

Rahul Bhattacharya

Indian Modern Art has had many Masters, artists who have
taken the first steps to post-colonize the formal contexts of
Western Modernisms. Within this galaxy of stars, Krishna
Reddy was a rare figure focused on extending the concerns
of modernism, and (yet) constantly developing a new language.



There is a famous anecdote, where his teacher Nandalal Bose
(slowly being recognized as the most important pedagogical
figure in Indian Modernism) commented that a young Krishna
Reddy’s nature studies understood form only superficially. This
oft-cited anecdote becomes important as Reddy evolved to be a
rare Indian Modernist Master who disengaged with the traditional
versus modern binaries, kept away from the macro narratives of
tantric thought, political culture or religious identities. Instead,
he constantly pushed to make his art profoundly personal and
deeply inspired by the mundane. Yet, this was his window into
the Universal.