Krishen Khanna: Images in My Time (Contemporary Indian Artists) - Hardcover

' ... these works have a significant role in the development of modern Indian painting'. Asian Art Books 2007

Krishen Khanna is a painter whose work engages the social, historical and political landscape of India. Born in Lahore in 1925, Khanna learned the tools of his trade at the evening classes conducted at the Mayo School of Art, Lahore. In the wake of India's partition he moved to Simla and thereafter to Delhi, where he currently lives and works. This book is the first to combine an Indian artist's monograph with the discussion of the socio-political context which motivated a generation of Indian artists. Khanna's style is discussed by Norbert Lynton: the artist dabbled in abstraction as a member of the Progressive Artists Group, a brief movement practised by artists striving towards modernity and challenging India's caste-driven structure, but ultimately he returned to representational art. This monograph places the artist's work in its biographical, historical and social context through the examination of several of his paintings, among which are The Flagellation and a series of bandwallahs (musicians) from the 1970s. The artist has contributed to the book with a discussion of his painting which offers the reader a unique insight into the thoughts and motivations behind his work. In addition, five essayists pay tribute here to the thematic variety and visually arresting images of Khanna's oeuvre.