M. Reddeppa Naidu (1932 - 1999)

Acquired from the artist's family

This painting is in good overall condition, as viewed.
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Throughout his artistic career, M. Reddeppa Naidu’s quest was to transform and update traditional and religious Hindu subjects into modern images not unlike what Raja Ravi Varma attempted a century before. The present work shows a form of Krishna tending to a herd of cows, represented as a group of abstracted white masses, as he holds up the mountain Govardhana, seen in the background. Though this painting represents a timeless Hindu narrative, it also follows a trend of single figure compositions seen in modernist Indian art. Because Naidu saw painting as a form of religious meditation, his representation of Krishna was intended to focus on devotion to the figure, and parallels the mythic significance of Krishna lifting the hill. Naidu was one of the pioneering modern artists from southern India, and among artists educated at the Government College of Arts and Crafts in Chennai where he garnered regional and national renown.