Top Indian Printmakers

Christ: 1963
Signed & dated lower left
Edition 100
Paper size: 21.5" x 15"

Female Nude: 1963
Signed & dated upper left
Edition 100
Paper size: 21.5" x 15"

Woman: 1963
Printed on coloured paper, with flecks of silver leaf.
Signed & dated lower left
Edition 100
Paper size: 22" x 14.5"

FN Souza was a brilliant and innovative print maker. His etchings and lithographs from the 1960s have only recently been re-discovered and make a very important contribution to the cannon of his work.

The father of modern lndian prints is generally acknowledged to be Bengal artist Somenath Hore, who worked and experimented widely with the medium after receiving preliminary guidance from another reputed artist, Krishna Reddy – who had in turn been initiated into the basic processes while working in the studio of master printmaker William Hayter

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So Krishna Reddy is considered as one of the pioneers in the field of printmaking.

Sanat Kar experimented with intaglio printing and went further to take prints from nontraditional intaglio matrices like engraved wooden block and other synthetic surfaces.

An etching by Sanat Kar

In 1951, Kanwal Krishna from Govern­ment Arts College, Calcutta, went to Europe and in 1953 to Paris, there under the guidance of William Hayter, learnt the newly developed intaglio printing technique. In 1955 he came back to India and settled in Delhi. During 1957 he set-up his own press and started doing multicolor intaglio prints of colographic process. Kanwal’s prints created a sensation among his contemporaries because of its charismatic quality through highly embossed surfaces and luminous colors.

KG Subramanyan, has done a wide range of lithographic prints and folio in Santiniketan.


One of the prominent print-makers of 60s and 70s was Jyoti Bhatt, who had his training from the Faculty of Fine Arts, Baroda between 1950-59. Jyoti Bhatt went to U.S.A. and learnt the technique of Intaglio in Pratt Graphic Center in New York. On returning to India in 1966, he devoted himself completely to Printmaking and created a working atmosphere in Baroda.

An outstanding contributor from Hyderabad is K Laxma Goud, who studied at Baroda under masters like K G Subramanyam and has played an important role as a printmaker especially in the field of intaglio etching and aquatints.

The most significant women artist among printmakers is Anupam Sud, who has used the intaglio process in all its variations-etching, dry point, combining it with the viscosity process and wiping technology. Restraint is the keynote of her work. While her sympathies and concerns are often feminist, a recurring theme in her work is the universal human predicament.

The popularity of printmaking among contemporaries has gained through Institutional system; Department of Printmaking, Kala Bhavan, Santiniketan. The department has continuously been enriched by individual and collective efforts of Biswarup Bose, late Somnath Hore, Sanat Kar, Nirmalendu Das, Pinaki Barua and Salil Sahni and also the Department of Graphics, Faculty of Fine Arts, Baroda, has always been an active center of printmaking spearheaded by P.D. Dhumal, Rini Dhumal, Jayakumar Reddy and Vijay Bagodi.

'Buffalo Rider' 12"x11" by Jayakumar Reddy

Rini Dhumal has her own print studio

Some of the alumnus of the same department include Vrindavan Solanki, Mimi Radhakrishnan, Walter D’Souza, Kavita Shah, Naina Dalal, Prakash, Satish Sholapur, Md. Rizwan, Viraj Naik, Ravikumar Kashi, Niyeti Chadha.

An etching by Viraj Naik 10"x8"

Another institution is the Department of Graphic Art, Rabindra Bharati University, Kolkata headed by Hare Krishna Bag, Parag Roy and Paula Sengupta. The Calcutta printmaking scene is active with printmakers like Atin Basak, Lina Ghosh, Jayant Naskar, Baishakhi, Rajesh Deb.

An etching by Parag Roy

The names of Zarina Hashmi, Natraj Sharma, RB Bhaskaran, RM Palaniappam, V Nagdas, Siddhartha Ghosh, Debraj, Pratibha Dakoji, Ajit Dubey, and JMS Mani also shine best in the field of print making.

An etching by Siddharth Ghosh

10"x10" by JMS Mani

At this moment, here in India, Indian printmakers are normally working with the following major areas: Relief, Intaglio, planography and Serigraphy.

The recent entry into the field of Indian Printmaking is Digitography and mixed media as we see in recent experiments by Ghulam Sheikh, Ravikumar Kashi, and Shukla Sawant.

An etching 13"x19" by Ravikumar Kashi