Years ago, the love of art drew them together and forged a bond. Years later, the league of extraordinary men has strengthened that bond with decades of friendship and memories.

The famed Progressive Artists Group was founded by F.N. Souza in 1947 and boasts of members that include S.H. Raza, Vasudev Gaitonde, Tyeb Mehta and the late M.F. Husain among many others of equal fame. Members of the Group are not just legends of their time but are perfect success stories. In addition to being best friends, they are also the biggest support system each could have.
Krishen Khanna, one of India’s most celebrated contemporary artists and a member of the group, talks about how they helped each other become successful, overcoming hurdles, rising from poverty and how the women in their lives get most of the credit for their success.
Khanna’s home is a testament of these great friendships. When you enter the artist’s home in Gurgaon you are greeted by several Husains, a massive Akbar Padamsee painting, a colourful Raza (a painting from the famous Bindu series) along with a few works of his own, such as a massive portrayal of the pain of Partition. The rest of the house is dotted with Souzas, more Husains and drawings by many of his famous artist friends. In his studio are piles of massive Tyeb Mehtas waiting to be unwrapped and displayed. Like most good things in his life, Khanna reveals that these bonds too were formed by accident.

Meeting Husain & Gaitonde

A fortnight after joining the Grindlays Bank in Bombay, Khanna, wearing a suit and tie, went to an art exhibition. A suit and tie were something his new friends would never be seen in. There, Husain and Gaitonde spotted him gazing intensely at the art works on display and approached him. “We became casual acquaintances and slowly the friendship grew,” says Khanna, as he reveals how he got his first free painting by Husain. “One day Husain told me that he would like to come home and see my work. During his visit he saw this book on theory of art and wanted to borrow it.” However, he never returned it because he forgot it in a cab. “Which is just as well,” chuckles Khanna, because one day he returned home to find a painting with an apology note from Husain for losing the book.
Slowly Husain and Khanna grew close. “When Husain would travel he would leave his paintings with me and vice versa. When I was transferred to Madras after six years in Bombay, I left a lot of work with him as I knew I would be coming and going a lot,” says Khanna adding, “I must have sold dozens of Husain’s paintings as I had access to the commercial community.” A director of Grindlays Bank who happened to be very prominent in the Parsi community also bought Husains and Razas on Khanna’s advice.
Husain and Khanna always kept in touch through correspondence no matter which part of the world they were in. “We wrote to each other mostly in Urdu in the early years,” says Khanna.
Khanna was among the many guests Husain invited to celebrate the sale of one of his paintings. When Khanna walked into the party, he asked one of Husain’s servants what the party was in honour of. The servant whispered, “Saab ka painting `100 ke liya bika hai!”
When asked about his feelings on the government’s decision to ban Husain from returning to India, he retorts sadly, “It was an awful thing to do. But life is funny. Husain had to leave, but they could not starve him because he had enormous talent. He thrived wherever he went, as he had the ability to make friends with everybody. Everybody felt they were very special friends of his, he had this magic formula of imparting this vibration, and people thought they were best friends.”

Befriending Raza, Souza

Palsikar, a very senior artist, was pressurising Khanna to put up his painting based on the news of Gandhiji’s death at an exhibition celebrating the Golden Jubilee of the Bombay Arts Society. Khanna refused as he was relatively unknown in the art world. “I thought I would be thrown out,” he says. But Palsikar displayed it nevertheless. Souza, Raza, Hari Kishan Lal and others noticed and admired Khanna’s work and surrounded him. “Slowly word got around about me and the friendship started,” recalls Khanna.
After Khanna got married, he moved to a lovely house on Strand Road in Bombay and hosted lots of get-togethers for artists.

buying a raza for £20

When Khanna quit the bank job in 1961; Raza was living in Paris and threw a party to celebrate the decision! Khanna reminisces, “When I was going to London for my show, I stopped over in Paris to stay with Raza, he gave me a list of all the people who had bought his work and told me to invite them.” Acknowledging the generosity, he adds, “People were helping each other enormously at that time.”
Another incident that the artist likes to narrate is how he bought his first Raza for £20! One day Raza was fretting about having to pay off a debt in Paris when Khanna, who was visiting at the time, asked him how much he owed and Raza replied, “£20.” So Khanna picked up one of the paintings lying around and paid Raza £20 for it. However, instead of using it to pay off the debt, Raza took his wife Jeanine and Khanna out for dinner. “Normally Raza drank this very cheap wine which tasted like vinegar, but that night he ordered some good wine,” laughs Khanna.

Friends turn brothers

The great thing about this group, according to Khanna, was that nobody bothered about each other’s religion; it was just a fraternity of artists who supported each other. Apart from art, another thing they had in common was how hard they had to work to succeed.
While Khanna, who had to leave Lahore for a week but couldn’t return for 40 years due to Partition, had to rebuild his life, Krishnaji Howlaji Ara would walk from his home in Bombay to a far off bank, wash all the cars there and walk back home to earn a living.

Sharing free lunches

An admirable thing about these artists is that they truly looked out for each other. When Khanna was commissioned to paint the dome at the ITC Maurya hotel in Delhi, he invited his friends to work with him. “I got hold of people like Gurucharan Singh who was going through a tough phase. So the opportunity to help me came as a blessing for him,” reveals Khanna.
He laughingly recalls how many of his artist friends would join him for lunch during the four years he was working on the dome at the Maurya, as he had access to all the facilities of the hotel. In fact, one day during lunch Manjeet Bawa asked Khanna if he too could come on board and help finish the dome. “Ramachandran did a lot of the work. Manjeet didn’t do much,” he laughs.

Wives, pillars of support
Renu Khanna

“If it were not for the female support all of us had, none of this success would have been possible,” says Khanna adding, “I am not being sentimental or dramatic. All right, painters worked very hard, but if you analyse how it all happened, you will realise it was due to the enormous support given to us by our family.”
His own wife Renu was a huge support and if it were not for her, he would not have had the courage to quit his job and pursue painting as a full-time career. Khanna says, “I had a wife, three kids, a dog, a cat and the servants to think of. I couldn’t just throw it all to the wind.” But his wife said, “Two people are much better than one to face a situation. So go ahead and quit.” After he quit she taught for 25 years at Modern School. This took care of the children’s education.
“If Renu had been a memsahib and said, ‘We have a lifestyle to maintain, you can’t quit’, I would never have been able to do so.” She even asked Khanna’s father to convince him to pursue what he loved doing and not worry about the rest.

Fasila Husain

Husain’s wife Fasila was always there for him. Khanna says they lived in a tiny home and Husain built himself a studio on top with beams and a rafter. He would have to bend and paint because he was tall. Fasila never complained.

Sakina Mehta

“If it was not for Sakina, Tyeb Mehta would not be possible,” says Khanna, adding, “Tyeb really had a very tough life and worked very hard in the face of adversity and his wonderful wife supported him through it all.”