Museum of Art and Photography, Bengaluru, unveils art exhibit 'Rhyme Unbroken — Krishna Reddy as Artist and Perpetual Student'

There are works of art that make a statement, there are works of art that ask a question; and then there are some that exist somewhere between these two, exploring ways of the world with a child-like curiosity. The 40 resplendent impressions of master printmaker, sculptor and teacher Krishna Reddy, on display at an ongoing exhibition at Museum of Art and Photography (MAP), surely fall into the last category. Titled Rhyme Unbroken — Krishna Reddy as Artist and Perpetual Student, the exhibition features mostly abstract and nature study pieces, some figurative works, one sculpture and a stunning display of the tools the artist used to make his plates.

An internationally acclaimed artist, Krishna Reddy received the Padma Shri and Kala Ratna awards for his contributions to the modernist movement and intaglio printmaking. He was born in 1925, near Chittoor in Andhra Pradesh. His father was a farmworker who also painted temple murals. Once he came of age , Krishna was sent to Rabindranath Tagore’s experimental school at Shantiniketan in West Bengal and was touted to have drawn influences from stalwarts like Nandalal Bose, Ramkinkar Baij and Jiddu Krishnamurti.

Apart from painting and sculpture, Krishna studied botany and biology at Shantiniketan, which perhaps helped him to produce the organic imagery of his nature study prints. As we began a walkthrough with co-curator Arnika Ahldag, the first print we gazed upon was titled Fish. Against the backdrop of electric blue, the piece painted in 1955 represents the movement of fish in water, through the use of black, white and red progressive lines. In the next, Butterfly Formation, traces the movement of butterflies in the air similarly. All of these pieces are multi-colour viscosity prints on paper, Arnika tells us.

“Krishna Reddy started print-making at Shantiniketan itself but they were most likely wood-cut prints. However, these are made through multi-colour viscosity printing, a technique he pioneered together with William Hayter,” she explains, adding, “Colours are applied on a plate with different amounts of linseed oil. These have different densities and seep into the lines in different ways. A sheet of paper is then applied and a roller is rolled over it. Usually printmaking is about control — controlling the image you will receive at the end.”

“However, multi-colour viscosity printing is about giving up control because you don’t fully know how the colours will mix. The colour will not just stay in the line, it will also splash a little bit. Not too many artists practice this,” Arnika smiles. It is important to note that during the time Krishna Reddy had pioneered the technique, printmaking was considered inferior to other art forms, as one could produce multiple copies using just one plate. Despite this, neither was Krishna interested in keeping the original artworks nor was he keen on destroying the plates once the prints were made, unlike most other printmakers.

The next painting that captivated us was Jellyfish, which drew its inspiration from Sputnik. Created two years before the satellite was launched, the artist imagined its movement in space to be reminiscent of that of jellyfish in water. The idea of cosmos comes back time and again in Krishna’s works, which can be further noticed when he brings forth ideas of meditation in his later pieces like Dawn Worship.

However, not just the cosmos – the society Krishna Reddy lived in also left an indelible mark on his work. Case in point — the student protests of the ’60s. One particular print depicts a line of people raising their hands in protest. “There’s also a sculpture based on the same idea. He made the original sculpture in bronze and permitted it to be replicated in resin, which I think is very fascinating.” We don’t know how many of these exist now but it means that he basically used to think of sculpture the same way we think about print,” Arnika smiles.

Just like the growing disconnect of humans from the cosmos seemed to find expression in Mr Reddy’s work, so did the growing disconnect of individuals from society. Take his impressions of clowns, for instance. While in one piece, the clown is accompanied by a sad face, in another, you see the audience spread across the frame and the clown situated at the centre – as if to say that without the audience, the clown does not really exist. “The circus was very popular at the time and Krishna Reddy was very interested in the emotional landscape of the clown,” Arnika notes.

Above all, what made us carve a special place for Krishna Reddy’s works in our hearts was that he reminded us of… no one. The more our boxed minds tried to understand how his schooling at Shantiniketan or living all his life in Paris and New York had found their ways through his choice of colour palette or recurring motifs, the more we ended up… well, not quite finding him. Perhaps then the earnest way to understand the works of Krishna Reddy is to just let our minds get rid of these biased constructs? And we are happy to report that this feeling is quite liberating.

Entry free. Till Jan 5, 2025, 9 am onwards. At Museum of Art and Photography (MAP), Kasturba Road.

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