Krishen Khanna

Born in Lahore in 1925, Khanna learnt 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. So far, he has had over forty one-man shows held at galleries in India and abroad. He has participated in the Tokyo Biennale, in 1957 and 1961, the Sao Paulo Biennale (1960) and in the Venice Biennale (1962). He won the National Award of the Lalit Kala Akademi, New Delhi in 1965, the Gold Medal at the First Triennale of Contemporary World Art, New Delhi in 1968. He was a recipient of Padma Shree, awarded by the President of India, in 1990.

Khanna’s style is discussed by Norbert Lynton – the artist dabbled in abstraction but returned to representational art as a member of the Progressive Artists’ Group. This was a brief movement practised by artists striving towards modernity and challenged India’s caste-driven structure.

The artist’s work is placed in its biographical, historical and social context through the examination of several of his paintings among which are Flagellation and a series of bandwallahs (musicians) in the 1970s. The depiction of musicians has motivated two writers – Gayatri Sinha and Marilyn Rushton – to look at Khanna’s work in relation to the theme of music.

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.