As the 14th Dalai Lama marks his 90th birthday and addresses questions surrounding his eventual succession, let us reflect on Kanwal Krishna’s extraordinary paintings, capturing his coronation. The Indian modernist painter remains the only artist who accompanied the official British diplomatic mission that witnessed the 1940 enthronement of Tenzin Gyatso, creating what has become an invaluable visual archive of this pivotal moment.
Kanwal Krishna, a pioneering Indian modernist painter and printmaker renowned for his evocative landscapes and spiritual engagement with nature, was in Tibet during 1939-1940 as part of an official British diplomatic mission led by Sir Basil Gould, the British Political Officer for Sikkim, Bhutan and Tibet. The mission’s primary objective was to attend and represent British interests at the 14th Dalai Lama’s enthronement in Lhasa in 1940.
Krishna was specifically commissioned to visually document the journey, the people, the ceremonies, and Tibetan culture through his paintings and sketches. The artist’s watercolors from this expedition provide some of the earliest comprehensive visual records of Tibetan life created by an Indian artist. Working within the formal structure of a diplomatic mission, Krishna was able to observe and paint the February 22, 1940 enthronement ceremony with remarkable intimacy, capturing the four-year-old spiritual leader.
Krishna’s artistic approach during the mission demonstrated his sophisticated understanding of modernist techniques adapted to ethnographic documentation. His restrained palette and sensitive brushwork conveyed not merely the visual spectacle of the ceremonies but their spiritual intensity and cultural significance. The resulting forty watercolors constitute a unique fusion of artistic vision and cultural anthropology, created under the auspices of colonial administration yet transcending its political context.
The historical significance of Krishna’s official role in the Gould mission has gained renewed recognition in recent years. In June 2025, his “Portrait of His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama at His Enthronement” achieved £152,800 at Bonhams London, establishing a new auction record for the artist. The work’s provenance from Sir Basil Gould’s personal collection underscores the diplomatic mission’s recognition of Krishna’s artistic achievement as integral to their historical documentation.
Bonhams specialist Giles Peppiatt identified the painting as the centerpiece of Gould’s collection, emphasizing its dual significance as both artistic masterwork and official historical record. The complete collection of forty watercolors from the mission sold for £457,600, reflecting growing international appreciation for this unique convergence of modernist Indian art and Tibetan cultural documentation.
Beyond his Tibetan work, Krishna continued his career as a landscape painter and printmaker, helping establish these genres within India’s modernist movement of the 1950s. His association with institutions including the Delhi Silpi Chakra and Lalit Kala Akademi positioned him as an influential figure whose technical innovations shaped subsequent generations of Indian artists.
As discussions surrounding the Dalai Lama’s succession intensify, Krishna’s paintings acquire additional layers of meaning as official historical documents. They represent not merely artistic interpretation but formal visual testimony to the beginning of a spiritual leadership that would profoundly influence global discourse on compassion and human rights. The four-year-old subject of Krishna’s official portraits would become a Nobel laureate and one of the 20th century’s most significant moral voices.
The emergence of the Gould collection at auction has illuminated this remarkable chapter in Indo-Tibetan cultural history, when artistic vision operated within diplomatic protocol to create lasting documents of spiritual transformation. Krishna’s role as official artist to the British mission ultimately transcended its colonial context, producing works that now serve as invaluable cultural bridges between traditions and epochs.
The legacy of Krishna Kanwal’s official documentation demonstrates how artistic commission, even within complex political frameworks, can preserve moments of profound historical significance for future generations.
Cover Image: The Dalai Lama on the Throne on 22 February 1940 by Kanwal Krishna | Bonhams
Athmaja Biju is the Editor at Abir Pothi. She is a Translator and Writer working on Visual Culture.
