Born into a poor family in Bandung, West Java, Hendra received no formal training but began to paint scenery for a local theatre troupe. The artistic networks of the period leading up to the Second World War are significant in the story of Indonesian Modernism. Hendra was one of the study group known as the Kelompok Lima (Group of Five) artists in Bandung from 1935, alongside Affandi, Barli, Sudharso and Wadhi. After the war he and his fellow artist Sudjana Kerton joined the Sanggar Pelukis Rakyat (People's Artists' Studio), founded in 1947 in Yogyakarta, Central Java.

Hendra had his first solo exhibition at the Indonesian National Committee Building, Yogyakarta, in 1946, at the point when, in the aftermath of the war, the Netherlands began its military attempt to regain its former colony. It was another decade before he had a second solo show at a pavilion of the Hotel Des Indes, Jakarta. After his imprisonment he moved to Bali, where he died in 1983.

Long revered as a key figure of Indonesian Modernism, Hendra's profile has risen further in recent years. Last year (2024) his work My Family, 1968, was sponsored by the National Gallery of Singapore to be exhibited at the Venice Biennale. His work was also featured at the MACAN Museum, Jakarta, in 2023 and the Revolusi exhibition at the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, in 2022.