Why Krishen Khanna still paints at 95
How MF Husain inducted the modern artist into the Progressive Artists Group
Last man standing: A series of bronze sculptures on bandwallahs from 2019. (Source: Gajendra Chauhan)
As Krishen Khanna leads you into his basement studio in Delhi, it is not the strong smell of colour or the bright canvases alone that strike you, but the artist’s grit and determination to “paint and paint some more.” “I am 95, I must use the remaining time as well as I can,” says one of India’s greatest modern painters.
To mark his 95th birthday last fortnight, his latest show at Artoholics Gallery in Delhi has 16 of his new paintings on display, along with some sculptures, all done in the past year. It’s a remarkable burst of productivity from an artist who has lived through a breadth of time and events. Even now, he paints at least five-and-a-half hours a day.
After the death of Akbar Padamsee last month, he is the last surviving member of the Progressives Artists Group, a landmark collective that shaped modern Indian art. One of his new works, In Memoriam, is a tribute to the camaraderie and influence of his colleagues. It shows his comrades-in-art, MF Husain, SH Raza, Bal Chhabda, Ram Kumar and VS Gaitonde, sipping tea, while being engages in a rapt discussion — something they did a lot of, when they were not painting.
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