Celebrating the life and art of Krishen Khanna, India’s legendary painter, as he turns 100, an artist who gave voice to the voiceless through powerful visual storytelling.
As he turns 100, Krishen Khanna stands as one of India’s last living legends of modern art—a pioneer whose paintings have chronicled the soul of a nation in transition. From Partition to post-Independence dreams, from the plight of common laborers to the laughter of bandwallahs, Khanna’s brush has captured it all, raw, real, and resonant.
A Journey Born from History
Born in 1925 in Lyallpur (now in Pakistan), Krishen Khanna’s early years were shaped by British India and the turbulence of Partition. Educated in England and later at Lahore’s Government College, Khanna wasn’t classically trained in fine arts, but he found his visual voice through self-discipline and a deep emotional connection to the world around him.
After moving to Shimla during the Partition, Khanna began working at Grindlays Bank in Bombay. But it was outside the bank’s walls that his true calling thrived. Immersed in the progressive cultural renaissance of post-Independent India, he formed deep bonds with artists like M.F. Husain, S.H. Raza, and F.N. Souza, soon joining the Bombay Progressive Artists’ Group, a collective that would change Indian art forever.
A Painter of People, Not Power
While many of his contemporaries leaned toward abstraction, Khanna’s work remained rooted in figuration and narrative. He painted the people he saw every day: refugees, laborers, truck drivers, wedding musicians. His series on “Bandwallahs” and “Truckwallahs” remains iconic, offering insight into dignity amid hardship.
Khanna’s paintings are not idealized fantasies. They are stories, each face, each gesture a chapter. His brush strokes reveal not only aesthetics but also empathy. He believed that art must speak, must witness. And for over seven decades, his canvases did just that.
Global Acclaim, Local Heart
In 1961, Krishen Khanna left his job at Grindlays Bank to devote himself entirely to art. The decision paid off. He received the Rockefeller Fellowship in 1962, served as an artist-in-residence at the American University in Washington, D.C., and exhibited his work around the world, in Tokyo, Venice, and São Paulo Biennales.
His paintings adorn public institutions and private collections alike. In New Delhi, his murals grace the ITC Maurya Hotel and corporate offices like L&T. Over the years, he has received India’s highest honors for the arts, including the Padma Shri in 1990, the Lalit Kala Ratna in 2004, and the Padma Bhushan in 2011.
At 100: Still Telling Stories
Despite his age, Khanna continues to paint every day at his home in Gurugram. His recent works, often in monochrome, are still filled with the same observation and emotional intelligence that have defined his life’s journey. "Creating art is like breathing," he said in a recent interview, and at 100, he continues to breathe creativity.
He often reflects on memory, mortality, and society’s unnoticed souls. Whether through a reimagining of the Last Supper featuring Indian artists or a portrait of a weary truck driver, Khanna’s art always tells a story and always leaves the viewer feeling seen.
The Legacy of a Humanist
Krishen Khanna isn’t just a painter—he is a witness, a chronicler, a humanist. His work bridges the personal and the political, the joyful and the tragic, the grand and the mundane. More than modernist expression, his art is a historical document of India's emotional landscape.
His legacy today lives not only in galleries but in every viewer who finds themselves reflected in his work. As India celebrates its centenary, retrospectives, exhibitions, and tributes pour in. But for Khanna, perhaps the greatest tribute is this: that the stories he told, of people often forgotten, will never be forgotten again.