The New Indian Express | The artist as printing machine

By Prachi Satrawal 

The history of printmaking is profoundly intertwined with shifting paradigms of art, the evolving figure of the artist, and the quest for autonomy of art in India. ‘Past in Perspective: Printmaking Practices from Bengal’, the latest exhibition at the Akar Prakar Gallery in Delhi, elegantly traces the journey of printmaking in Bengal. It showcases the works of 13 eminent artists and their engagement with the medium, rooted in emerging institutions and exchanges with international artists from Japan to Europe.

Printmaking, an underrated art form, involves creating visuals by transferring ink from a hard surface—whether metal, woodblock, or lithographic stone—onto another medium. During the era when Calcutta reigned as the capital of British India until 1911, the city flourished as an epicentre of printmaking, with entire streets bustling with the craft. Bengal has its history of print culture—the Battala prints—woodcut illustrations, which were generally used to mass produce illustrations for religious scriptures.

Bengal ink

These prints thrived in the pre-print era and were popular among the lower-middle classes. However, their demand declined and eventually faded away with the rise of lithographic prints in the late 19th century.

Reena Lath, director, Akar Prakar, states: “This exhibition is like a second part of the history of printmaking in Bengal. We held an exhibition on printmaking practices in 19th-century Bengal around 2017, where we showcased traditional Battala prints alongside prints from the Calcutta Art Studio used for propagation, advertising, and propaganda. Our new exhibition focuses on contemporary printmaking as it shifted from being a mass reproduction medium to fine art.”

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Institutions, artists

Artists such as Somnath Hore moved to Delhi, establishing the printmaking department at Delhi Polytechnic. Hore’s unique experiments included the invention of printing on paper pulp, yielding abstract formations that departed from traditional figures and landscapes. His works in the exhibition are displayed beside Krishna Reddy’s innovative use of the viscosity technique that also commenced colour-based printmaking experiments in India. With each of the 13 artists occupying a dedicated wall, the exhibition offers an interpretation of the history of printmaking and its formalistic evolution, through the artists’ lives and their relationships with influential figures and institutions in the 20th-century art world.

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