India, July 6 -- When he came out of the ritzy bank office on a balmy November afternoon in 1961 after serving out a six-month notice period, his friends were waiting outside. M F Husain, Bal Chhabra and V S Gaitonde told Krishen Khanna they wanted to celebrate his "liberation". They did so in style at the Bombelli's restaurant in Mumbai's Churchgate and Chhabra presented him with a gold tie pin in the shape of a palette. Their other friends like S H Raza in Paris gathered whoever they could find to mark the moment the banker Khanna became a full-time artist.

More than six decades later, his friends Husain, Chhabra, Gaitonde and Raza are no more, but the world of Indian art is together this time to celebrate yet another landmark in the l...