Tek Bir Mukhiya was born in 1938 in Okhaldhunga, Eastern Nepal. His parents were Karna Bir and Padma Mukhiya. When he was young, his family migrated to India and settled down in there. Tek Bir's career as an artist began in Calcutta. He did not receive any formal training, but his interest, abilities, and experiences helped shape his work to a great extent. During his early days as an artist in Calcutta, he sold his work through a local gallery called the Cann House.

Tek Bir Mukhiya met His Majesty Late King Mahendra when the King visited Calcutta enroute his official tour to China. At the time, Mukhiya presented a painting to the King. Later on, King Mahendra requested Tek Bir to return to Nepal and continue his work in the country. About this time, the eminent artists of Nepal were Amar Chitrakar, Kalidas Shrestha, Tej Bahadur Chitrakar, Chandraman Maskey, and Uttam Nepali.

Mukhiya remembers the time when he returned to Nepal. He had to struggle to make ends meet and says that he sometimes worked for 19 hours a day. At the time, the press lacked modern printing technologies. Pictures that were to be printed had to be carved on blocks of wood and then stamped on paper. Tek Bir recalls the time he participated in a seminar in Japan regarding cover page designing and printing. He had taken a small piece of carved wood to demonstrate how block prints were made in Nepal; however, after attending Afghanistan's demonstration, which illustrated full color offset printing methods, he decided not to make his presentation.

Mukhiya's cover artwork career went well in Nepal. He made cover artwork for about half of books (approximately 5,500) published in Nepal at one point in time. Since 1966, he has been regularly involved in various art programs of the National Association of Fine Arts and the Royal Nepal Academy. He has been honored with the Gorkha Dakchin Bahu for his commitment to art and his works have been exhibited in Britain, Germany, Japan, Philippines, India, Bangladesh, and Mongolia. He has been working at Sajha Prakashan, Nepal's national publishing house, for many years.

Mukhiya, who usually likes to use lighter pastel colors in his work, recently started working with darker colors. He generally uses water colors for posters and book covers and oil for his other works. He enjoys drawing cartoons and has been regularly contributing to magazines. He feels that Durga Baral is among the nation's best cartoonists. He remembers that at one time - before the establishment of democracy in the country - abstract art was censored, and he was very pleased when he was able to publish some of his abstract works in "Garima," addressing the social and political concerns of that time.

Tek Bir believes that children should receive an overall arts education and works to promote children's literature. His daughter Sradha Mukhiya has been awarded for her work and was a volunteer at Spiny Babbler for some years. He hopes that in future the country's educational system will be able to create a congenial arts learning environment for young people.

He lives with his wife, son, and daughter nearby Chakrapath on the way to Nakhu.