User:DesiBoy101/sandbox

When he was two years old, his family moved to Lahore. His early studies began at the Sacred Heart High School in the city. Kahan Chandra Khanna, his father was a teacher in an intermediate college. In 1930, his father travelled to England to pursue his doctorate. On his return to Lahore, he brought copies of Leonardo da Vinci's Self Portrait and The Last Supper. Young Krishen was delighted to see these creations which left a lasting impression of art on him. (HB)

Khanna’s family moved to Multan in 1936. He received the Rudyard Kipling Scholarship in 1938 at the age of 13. Through this scholarship he was admitted to the Imperial Service College in Windsor (England) where he studied art for the first time. During the ongoing Second World War in 1942, Krishna Khanna passed the examination from Oxford and Cambridge School of Certificate with a subject in arts. In 1944, the Khanna family moved to Lahore from where he completed his B. A. honours from the Government College. The year 1946 was an important moment in his life when he enrolled in Sheikh Ahmed's studio to study drawing and also started working in Kapoor Art Works. Here, he learned the technique of painting as well as printing. Khanna earned Rs 350 every month in this job. With his first salary he had bought a work by Prannath Mago and thus began his life as an artist. In the same year, he participated in the annual exhibition of Punjab Art Society wherein his work Dead Tree was highly appreciated. (HB)

The years that followed were quite challenging. There was chaos in the country due to communal riots. It became clear for the Khanna family that it would not be possible to stay in Lahore under any circumstances. On 12 August 1947, the family of five members came to India in a car leaving their home behind and migrated to Shimla. (HB)

Career
In India, a settled life for Khanna began in 1948 when he was appointed as an officer in Grindlay’s Bank, Mumbai. This job was a sigh of relief for his family as it helped them to sustain themselves. During his time in Mumbai, Khanna met S. B. Palsikar who soon became his close friend. During the exhibition at Bombay Art Gallery, Krishna Khanna met F. N. Souza which soon turned into a friendship. This was followed by close acquaintance with the remaining members of the Progressive Artist Group—M.F. Hussain, Ambadas Gade, S. H. Raza, K.H. Ara, Sadanand Bakre. Khanna's deep friendship Gaitonde, Tyab Mehta, N. S. Bendre and Mohan Samant. His work News of Gandhi's Death was displayed in the Golden Jubilee Exhibition of the Bombay Art Society, which was highly praised. The famous art critic of the time, Rudolf von Leyden wrote extensively about this work by Khanna and said that he would be among the best artists of India. In this way his life got back on track, but the pressure of the job was in its place was sustained.

Krishen Khanna exhibited his works first in 1949, where his first painting was sold to Dr. Homi Bhabha, collecting works for the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research. (India Modern – 198 to 203)

In 1953, he was transferred to Madras. Here he composed works of the Musician series, inspired by Carnatic music and Bharatanatyam. (HB)

In 1955, Khanna held his first solo show at the USIS, Madras, and since then has exhibited widely in India and abroad, becoming one of India's pre eminent modernists. Krishen Khanna was awarded the Rockefeller fellowship in 1962 and was artist-in-residence at the American University in Washington in 1963-64. (India Modern – 198 to 203)

He worked at the bank till 1961 when he gave it up to devote himself to art fulltime. (DAG)

Style
This painting from an early phase of his career is of a part when he enjoyed experimenting with texture in a muted palette. It was a time when some critics felt that like some of his peers, the artist might abjure the figurative for the abstract. Khanna surprised them by turning more strongly towards portrayals of human forms, many of which were drawn from biblical themes which he painted in an evocative Indian fashion.

Krishna Khanna, while molding his art in new dimensions using oil colors, has also used acrylic colors and has also made drawings with ink, pencil etc. (HB) “All great art has to be local. When I say local, I mean an artist has to draw from the things near to him so that a certain impression comes through in his paintings. At the same time, great art transcends the ordinary moment and strives to a moment in infinity” - KRISHEN KHANNA (India Modern – 198 to 203 When Khanna lived in Washington, D.C. and New York City (1964–65), he experimented with pure abstraction and different methods of painting. His interest in Japanese ink-painting techniques is reflected in his work titled Vijay (Victory, 1965). He had come across this technique during his visit to Japan under the Rockefeller Fellowship.

Themes
Despite expressing social and political commitment, Khanna does not cloak any political ideology. His commitment is purely human. Be it the tragedy of Partition, whether it is the struggle of the underprivileged or whether it is a person who has to face the irony of middle class life - Khanna has shaped the life of the common man with great affinity. With the tragic moments of life like violence, crime, death, there are elements of abstraction in Krishna Khanna's works, which give life to the memories of history, while also the multifaceted symbols that create a singular effect with figurative combinations.

Khanna resolved his interest in biblical themes rendering them as Indian narratives, something he was inclined towards as part of an upbringing that did not create different silos for different subjects. This context mainstreamed the idea of Christ into the larger pantheon of art. It was Christ's as much as Mary's pain and grief that compelled him to paint these scenes, and he saw in them the everyday suffering of the masses, and it was this constituency he addressed in this extremely moving body of works. Christ's suffering has drawn Indian modernist painters, most of whom have rendered Christ as a helpless, wounded, dying man nailed to the cross with a drooping head, or painted only his head and face, registering his pain but often, showing him as a messiah. During this time, Krishen Khanna's subjects could range from aspects that looked to India's ancient past successes in science and medicine and studies of figures of wisdom and learning. In a later phase, his works would turn celebratory as he looked at the surroundings of middle class India - vegetable and fruit sellers on city pavements, storytellers ringed by street urchins, people at leisure in neighbourhood cafes and dhabas, his eponymous bandwallahs with their crimson red uniforms with shining braids and buttons, celebrations of festivals and processions.

Work
If you look at 'Christ Carrying His Cross', you will feel that Jesus is tired of carrying his own cross. 'Anatomy Lesson', 'The Stranger', 'The Bride', 'Girl with Basket', 'Last Supper', 'Scribe', 'Blind Man's Buff', 'Rare View', 'Emmos', 'The Story Teller' Many untitled works and innumerable illustrations of Krishna Khanna's art- There is an example of the richness of the world, whose colour-behavior, paintbrushing, dynamism of lines, skill of arrangement and sensibility of subjects have a deep impact. (HB)

Major exhibitions
He did hundreds of solo exhibitions in the country and abroad, and also earned fame by participating in many international exhibitions. Krishna Khanna brought international recognition to Indian art by participating in the Tokyo Biennial in 1957, the Saopaolo Biennial in 1960, the Venice Biennial in 1962, etc. In 1968, he was made the commissioner of the first triennial organized by the Lalit Kala Akademi. (HB)

Khanna has held more than forty one-man shows of his works in India and abroad. (6) About 120 works in his overview exhibition (23 January to 5 February 2010) in the galleries of Lalit Kala Akademi, New Delhi located at Rabindra Bhavan. (HB)

Awards and recognition
He received the National Award of Lalit Kala Akademi, the Lalit Kala Ratna Award along with the Triennial Bharat Award

In 1965, he received the national award by Lalit Kala Akademi, New Delhi, and a fellowship of the Council of Economics and Cultural Affairs, New York. He has received the Lalit Kala Ratna from the President of India in 2004, the Padma Shri in 1990 and the Padma Bhushan in 2011.

In popular culture
Documentary Rushdie’s book and talk

Personal life
In 1950, Krishna Khanna married Renu Chatterjee. They have one son and two daughters.