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KRISHEN KHANNA
(b. 1925)
Untitled
Oil on canvas
25.5 x 33.5 in (65 x 85 cm)
$ 10,000 ‒ 12,000
Rs 6,40,000 ‒ 7,68,000
PROVENANCE:
Acquired circa 1950
Thence by descent
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KRISHEN KHANNA
(b. 1925)
Kettle Drummer
Signed 'KKhanna' (lower right); signed and
inscribed 'KKhanna/ KRISHEN KHANNA/
"Kettle Drummer"' (on the reverse)
Oil on canvas
32 x 13 in (81 x 33 cm)
$ 18,750 ‒ 23,440
Rs 12,00,000 ‒ 15,00,000
PROVENANCE:
Acquired directly from the artist
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T
his painting was made by Krishen Khanna for
Cecelia F Johnson in the 1950s. Johnson was a
supporter of the arts, who knew Khanna when
she was posted as Director of Library Services with the
USIS in Madras (now Chennai) in the 1950s. Khanna
had moved with his family to Chennai in 1953, to work
for Grindlays Bank. According to family lore, Johnson
commissioned Khanna to paint a scene in the style of
Native American art. Khanna recalls painting this scene
of a figure riding a horse, based on Geronimo, the leader
and medicine man of an Apache tribe. The painting hung
in Johnson’s Chennai residence, and she saved behind
it, a newspaper article on Khanna, with the words “He
painted my horse” across the ageing newsprint. Johnson
gifted the painting to her sister in the late 1970s and it
has remained within the family since.
The present lot on display in Cecelia F Johnson’s Chennai home in the 1950s
Image courtesy of the family
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