Bengaluru’s MAP holds retrospective on artist Krishna Reddy, the eternal student

Rhyme Unbroken, a retrospective on artist Krishna Reddy, is on at the Museum of Art and Photography

While art is often considered the domain of the high brow, an awareness of the life story tends to soften that stance. However, when it comes to Krishna Reddy, it is his unceasing wonder of the world around him that makes one forget his work could be considered intellectual, cerebral even.

Krishna Reddy was not only a printmaker, but also a sculptor and a teacher; the year 2024 marks the beginning of his birth centenary which is why Rhyme Unbroken was curated by Arnika Ahldag and Kuzhali Jaganathan at the Museum of Art and Photography.

It always helps to have works that take one through different decades of an artists’ life when planning a retrospective, and this is where Arnika says they struck gold as they have a great set of artist proofs gifted by Harsha and Srilatha Reddy which helped them trace Krishna’s work all the way back to his early years.

As the city has always been one of the primary centres for printmaking, the curators felt an exhibition such as this would appeal to art students. “Krishna hailed from a small rural town in Andhra Pradesh and he went abroad to study at the Slade School of Fine Art in London at a time when a lot of modernists had enrolled there. From Slade, he went to Paris and New York, eventually becoming a renowned artist in the United States. His is a story that would fascinate a lot of people,” says Arnika.

Krishna was fortunate to land thick in the middle of one of the most exciting times in world art and culture — post War Europe. He met Salvador Dali, Joan Miro, Alberto Giacometti and others, and would have intense discussions with them at cafes and ateliers. This wider world view is reflected in his work.

“These greats were talking about art and art making, working together and learning from each other. They looked at each other’s work. To look at his practice through the lens of his life’s encounters, makes his work quite interesting,” says Arnika

As an artist and as a person, Krishna was a lifelong student and his exposure and learning from the masters, cascaded into his role of a teacher. Kuzhali says, “It was not just contemporary printmakers who were influenced by him, he encouraged everyone to co-learn and that was the way he taught his students too.”