Murals · Krishen Khanna

ITC Maurya, New Delhi

The Great Procession

The Great Procession covers the vaulted ceiling of the lobby of the ITC Maurya hotel in New Delhi. Krishen Khanna worked on it for four years, painting groups of shaped canvas panels in his studio at Garhi and testing how each would sit on the vault. The vault is framed by fifty polished timber ribs. There was talk of removing them, but they were kept, and he worked his scenes around and behind them, so that a scene often seems to pass behind a rib and continue on the other side.

Across two or three levels of the vault runs a continuous procession of people and animals through streets, alleys and buildings and out into open country of rocks, sea and mountains, mixing the Mauryan past with the present. The crowd includes priests, tailors, cobblers, barbers, acrobats and jugglers, beggars, a dancing bear and an elephant carrying a howdah. The artist appears in it himself, among people he knew.

Khanna has said he invited friends, among them Ramachandran, Manjit Bawa and Gurcharan, to assist him by contributing their skills to a few parts of the mural.

This is a continuous procession, with no beginning and no end. If you look carefully, you may find yourself in it. And even if you don’t, you will still be there, because it encompasses all, man, beast, bird, land, water, air and fire, and all emotions that flesh is heir to.

Krishen Khanna · In My 100th Year, 2024

Publication → The Great Procession

The painted vault of the ITC Maurya lobby seen from below: polished timber ribs radiate from the crown of the vault over three tiers of painted scenes, under a deep blue painted sky. — One end of the vault, where the timber ribs meet at a single point

The other end of the vault seen from below: timber ribs radiate from a second crown over painted sea, rocks and animals, with two herons at the lowest level — The other end of the vault: sea, rocks and animals

One long side of the vault: a white building with arched windows rises into the painted blue sky between the timber ribs, above a lower row of figures, a bull, trees and two herons — One long side of the vault, with a white building rising into the painted sky

Two white herons wading among reeds and bright leaves against blue water, on two panels divided by a polished timber rib. — Herons among the reeds

A domed octagonal pavilion with pointed arches stands on a red platform beside a banana plant; a timber rib rises straight through the middle of it. — A domed pavilion, a timber rib running through it

A tea stall: a turbaned man pours tea from a kettle beside shelves of cups, while below him customers sit at tables drinking and eating; a timber rib divides the scene. — A dhaba, with a man pouring tea above his customers

A painter at a table crowded with brushes, bottles, dishes and an oil lamp reaches out with his brush towards a drawing of a woman on the wall; a window opens above — A painter at his table

A barber in a white vest raises his scissors over a customer wrapped in a white sheet; on the red table before them are a mirror, a comb, a green bottle, scissors and a packet of cigarettes. — A barber at work

A black bear with a red collar and a brass bell stands on its hind legs between two timber ribs; a dog's head appears at the lower left. — A dancing bear

A grey elephant carrying a howdah on a blue and purple cloth; in the howdah a bald man in a dark high-collared coat with a medal sits beside a woman in a sun hat — An elephant and howdah

A figure in a red shirt stares straight out through a pair of white binoculars from a window set in a brick wall. — A figure looks out through binoculars

Made for ITC Chola, Chennai

Chola Migrations

Chola Migrations was commissioned by ITC-Welcomgroup for the ITC Chola hotel in Chennai.

Its subject is the Cholas, a south Indian dynasty of roughly the tenth to the fourteenth century. Rather than their temples or bronzes, Khanna drew everyday life: families and animals among palms and rocks, people unloading cargo from the ships, and the ships and their crews heading out into heavy seas, guided by the stars.

Khanna knew the region from the 1950s, when he worked for Grindlays Bank in Madras. For the ships he studied a carved relief at Borobudur in Indonesia. In 2007 Mapin published the whole drawing as an accordion book.

Publication → Chola Migrations

The whole drawing, from the land at the left to the sea at the right

Drawing of a ship crowded with sailors under tall angular sails and a ladder-like mast, pitching through heavy waves — A ship and its crew in heavy seas

A man playing a flute, seated on the back of a horned animal standing in water, beneath dark angular rocks and the fronds of a palm — A flute player

Figures carrying bundles on their heads and shoulders beneath a large black bird in flight; at right a figure holds a child — Figures carrying loads

Seated figures, one with hands joined, one holding fruit, beneath a smiling figure carrying a basket of fruit on his head; a dark palm trunk at right — Figures with baskets and fruit

A seated figure with one hand raised, in a dark niche framed by rough stone blocks — A figure in a stone niche