Krishen Khanna Biography 
Krishen Khanna is an Indian artist and painter and one of the last surviving members of the Progressive Artists’ Group. At the age of 90+, he is still active in the field of art and recounts some of the intimate details of his journey as an artist from Lahore. He is originally from Lahore who fled from his hometown to India in the fear of partition, at the age of 21. One of the leading Indian artists post-independence, he is a recipient of the Rockefeller Fellowship in 1962, the Padma Shri in 1990, and the Padma Bhushan in 2011. Interestingly he is a self-taught artist. A Far Afternoon — A painted saga by Krishen Khanna (2015) is an award winning documentary film based on him.
Krishen Khanna was born into a Hindu family in Lyallpur in 1925 as the eldest child of his family. His hometown is now known as Faislabad, a part of Pakistan. He studied in a boarding school in England, and was one of the few students who had taken up arts as a subject. He got interested to art and painting when his father came back from Milan completing a PhD and gifted him a small print of Leonardo da Vinci’s ‘The Last Supper’. His father briefly explained him about the concept of the picture and little Krishen tried to copy the picture. That was his first stint with paint and brush. Since then art of painting fascinated him a lot.
He moved to Shimla at the age of 21, and was restless in his new ‘home’. He had lost a job and didn’t want to give more difficulties to his family as he was the eldest child. He met a man from the Grindlays Bank asking him whether he was an alumnus of the prestigious Imperial Service College. When he was asked if he would be interested in joining a bank, without any hesitation, Krishen told ‘yes’. He was in great need of a financial aid at that point of time, and with the help of that person, he got the job. He worked with Grindlays Bank for 14 years and later resigned the job to completely dedicate towards the world of art.
Published: January 22, 2019
Updated: January 22, 2019
