Krishen Khanna with Kalpana Shah at the group show Imprints in July 2007 at Tao Art Gallery. Pics Courtesy Tao Art Gallery

The exhibition brings together a collection of sculptures, tapestries, paintings and hand sketches from different phases of Khanna’s career. It features his iconic series Bandwallahs, a recurrent theme in his oeuvre since the 1980s, along with other works around Christian and mythological themes. His works from the Bandawallah series, part of a larger body of work built around his observation of urban experiences, are raucous and colourful. “The fact that I have painted a lot of Bandwallahs emerges from the fact that these people were always to be seen in knots in many places like Red Fort and Jangpura, where I have lived,” Khanna notes. “They became my subject because they were everywhere to be seen; alone, not much could be achieved, but as a group, they were a band. It surprised me to think that so little of this subject made its way into the work of other artists. A rare exception was Mickey Patel, who too, made it a point to discover this whole heap of subject matter in figurative art.”

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In 2001, to celebrate Tao Art Gallery’s first anniversary, Shah curated a show titled Ashtanayak with PAG (Progressive Artists’ Group) members Tyeb Mehta, Krishen Khanna, MF Husain, SH Raza, Bal Chhabda, VS Gaitonde, Akbar Padamsee and Ram Kumar. She remembers how Husain hand-sketched the catalogue cover sitting in front of her with a piece of charcoal, the names appearing not alphabetically but, in a circular pattern, so that “no one was better than the other; all were equal.” Copywriting was done by Krishen Khanna. “It was such an emotion-driven idea,” recalls Shah. The exhibition showcased two works from the 1950s and two works from the 2000s of each artist to mark their fascinating 50-year creative journeys. 

“They all had individuality and were not influenced by each other’s work, but were still friends,” she remarks. Shah shares memories of meeting Khanna over the years in Delhi and Shimla, of his basement studio where he seemed like “a free soul at play”, and of an early meeting with him when she bought an artwork without negotiating. “‘You are not a gallerist, you are one of us,’ he had said,” she recalls with a smile.