KATTINGERI KRISHNA HEBBAR | Drought

Acquired directly from the artist in 1973                                                          Saffronart, 6-7 June 2007, lot 46
Private collection, Mumbai
Acquired from the above in 2014

New Delhi, Visual Art Gallery, India Habitat Centre, India’s French Connection: Indian Artists in France, DAG Modern, 1-11 February 2018

K. Singh, India’s French Connection: Indian Artists in France, DAG Modern, New Delhi, 2018, p. 122 K. Singh, India Modern, Narratives from 20^th Century Indian Art, DAG Modern, 2015, p. 174

K. Singh, A Visual History of Indian Modern Art, Volume Seven: Alternate Sensibilities, DAG, New Delhi, 2015, p. 1403

K. Singh, Manifestations XI, DAG, New Delhi, 2014, p. 126

There is craquelure across the surface, especially within areas of thicker paint. There are minor areas of paint loss across the surface. The band along the top of the work fluoresces under UV light and appears to be re-touched. The back of the canvas has stains and spots of foxing. The painting is in overall good condition commensurate with age, as viewed
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Kattingeri Krishna Hebbar was born in 1911 at Kattingeri in the Udupi district of Karnataka. His father was a sculptor and used to make clay idols of Lord Ganesha during festivals. Hebbar was inspired by the murals of Ajanta, Jain manuscripts, the miniature tradition of the Mughal and Rajput courts and the teachings of Ananda Coomaraswamy. As a result Hebbar remained engaged with classical Indian art forms throughout his career. Having rejected the academic realist technique he had assimilated at the Sir J.J. School of Art in Bombay, Hebbar was in constant search for a compelling personal style that better suited the themes he yearned to explore. In addition to his art education in Bombay, the artist was exposed to Western styles during his stint at the Académie Julian in Paris where he was influenced by the art of Paul Gauguin and in particular Amrita Sher- Gil. In his work, Hebbar sought to create his own style that blended the ancient and the modern. Throughout his career he experimented with a gamut of themes spanning indigenous folk traditions to Western Modernism in his quest to formulate a personal idiom that encapsulated not merely a visual but also a sensory response to his subjects and surroundings.

Hebbar’s sympathy for the poor and those suffering from displacement, conflict or famine is embodied in paintings like this and other acclaimed works of this period such as Paisa (1960) and Drywood (1968). Within Hebbar’s oeuvre, scenes of happiness and play are rife, but also coexist with the more muted themes of war and unrest, as seen in this painting. The artist’s awe of the figurative form is tempered by the distinct awareness of destruction and pity.

‘'From the very beginning of my life as a painter it has been my aim to be able to express my joys and sorrows through color and line as freely as a child expresses hunger by crying or its joy by laughter. For this purpose I had to learn the vocabulary of art and also to draw sustenance from the vast treasure accumulated from the past and practiced at present all over the world." (K.K. Hebbar, Voyage in Images, Jehangir Art Gallery, Bombay, 1991, Introduction)