This text is a part of a collection specializing in underrepresented craft histories, researched and written by the 2024 Craft Archive Fellows, and arranged in collaboration with the Middle for Craft.
The late Indian-American printmaker Krishna Reddy was a daring artist and lifelong educator who prolonged his curiosity in sculpture to carving right into a metallic plate, reworking the way in which we use coloration in printmaking at present. His philosophy as an artist and instructor was that the enjoyment of creation shouldn’t be a solitary act. On the event of his 1981–82 retrospective on the Bronx Museum, he defined his reasoning to an interviewer: “Once you experience it, why not see if somebody else can use it?”
Reddy experimented deeply with supplies and, based mostly upon an opportunity encounter, collaboratively developed a brand new method that simplified the method of printing totally different colours in intaglio. The method he perfected — variously often known as viscosity, combined coloration intaglio, or intaglio simultaneous coloration printing — makes use of only one plate and layers coloured inks of various viscosities with specialised rollers to create a multicolored picture in only one cross by a press. Beforehand, each coloration required its personal etched plate; making a multicolor picture is a cautious and laborious means of guaranteeing the layers of colours lined up accurately.
Reddy firmly believed that training artists made the very best academics, and he impressed others to expertise the identical satisfaction within the artistic course of. The Robert Blackburn Printmaking Workshop, the oldest and longest-running neighborhood print store in the US, was one of many first locations Reddy taught printmaking in New York Metropolis in 1968. There, he continued to supply workshops and demonstration courses for over 30 years. Blackburn, a Black American printmaker, established his workshop in 1947 and shortly established it as a collaborative haven for printmakers from all around the world, particularly artists of coloration. Dozens of prints and sculptures from Reddy’s physique of labor are on view on the Print Middle New York in Krishna Reddy: Heaven in a Wildflower, operating by Might 21. The group can even supply public programming and workshops within the spring to increase the dialogue on Reddy in tandem with the Elizabeth Basis for the Arts Robert Blackburn Printmaking Workshop Program, whose present Krishna Reddy and the Printmaking Workshop, which I curated, opens on March 1. I collected oral histories from a number of artists who studied with Reddy at Blackburn’s workshop to know the pioneering spirit of his instructing of viscosity methods, how he traversed the continuum of craft and artwork, and what it means to be a collaborative printmaker.
Krishna Reddy, “Untitled (Three Figures)” (1967) (© Krishna Reddy Property; picture by Argenis Apolinario, courtesy Print Middle New York)Inventive Growth and Atelier 17
Krishna Reddy’s early academic experiences in India vastly formed his later creative philosophies. Born in Andhra Pradesh, India, in 1925, he was lucky to have the ability to attend the Rishi Valley College, established by thinker Jiddu Krishnamurti on the ideas of inquiry, self-awareness, and lifelong studying. Later, on the artwork faculty of Visva-Bharati at Shantiniketan, a university based by poet and Nobel Prize recipient Rabindranath Tagore, Reddy explored his curiosity in sculpture whereas fostering a reference to the pure world. In 1949, he traveled to Europe and studied sculpture with Henry Moore after which Ossip Zadkine, who acknowledged Reddy’s graphic potential and advised that he work with artist William Stanley Hayter at Atelier 17, a printmaking studio in Paris.
When Reddy joined Hayter’s Atelier 17 in 1951, it was already often known as a spot for artists similar to Max Ernst, Alberto Giacometti, and Joan Miro to experiment and collaborate. Within the huge, open-layout area of the print studio, concepts flowed freely. Hayter was not within the industrial facets of printing and inspired artists to study from one another and collaborate with grasp printers on the Atelier.
Reddy realized conventional black and white etching at Visva-Bharati, however at Atelier 17, he was capable of experiment with making use of coloration to his prints. Reddy labored on a metallic plate as he would a sculpture, digging and gouging out the plate with hand instruments to carve deep reliefs that created photographs with dynamic motion and expression. A drop of spilled linseed oil created a possibility for Reddy, together with fellow Indian artist Kaiko Moti and Hayter, to experiment with making use of coloured inks in probably the most direct approach doable. Reddy continued to develop single plate coloration printing or viscosity all through his life and have become its best-known practitioner. He by no means let go of the enjoyment of making and supplied artists a brand new approach to consider coloration, texture, and type.
Krishna Reddy instructing a workshop with Robert Blackburn, seen within the background (picture courtesy the archives of Robert Blackburn Printmaking Workshop)Krishna Reddy at Robert Blackburn Printmaking Workshop
Krishna Reddy and Robert Blackburn met in post-war Paris, which was a cultural hub for Black artists and people from Europe’s former colonies. Each established and rising artists freely mingled and shared concepts within the metropolis’s cafes and one another’s studios. Per the Bronx Museum retrospective’s catalog, Blackburn poetically described assembly Reddy serendipitously within the spring of 1953 close to the Pont Des Arts: “It was a beautiful Parisian afternoon; there stood this striking man of color whose soft vibrations drew me towards him. We talked briefly. This encounter was to remain with me until our meeting ten years later in New York.” Blackburn was acquainted with the experimental creativity of Hayter’s Atelier 17 from its time in New York, and it aligned along with his personal philosophy of not imposing aesthetic boundaries on artists.
Michael Kelly Williams and Helio Salcedo, “West Indian Day Parade” (1983) (picture courtesy Michael Kelly Williams)
Throughout one in every of Reddy’s visits to New York in 1968, Blackburn invited him to show at his Printshop. Past their mutual respect, Reddy and Blackburn additionally shared similarities of their approaches to printmaking and instructing. They handled college students as equals, as artists embarking on their very own journey of creativity and technical discovery. Blackburn cultivated a welcoming, imaginative setting that was well-known for its spirit of openness and inclusion, which attracted various and worldwide artists who took Reddy’s viscosity workshops — lots of whom continued to work in viscosity all through their careers.
Artist and sculptor Michael Kelly Williams, who first encountered Reddy whereas taking his courses at Blackburn’s within the late Seventies, instructed me that he credit Reddy with fostering a way of collaboration and experimentation in his personal printmaking. For the print “West Indian Day Parade” (1983), Williams labored with fellow artist Helio Salcedo to attract out the pictures on an deserted plate utilizing engraving, metallic stamps, and textural results. They experimented with the colour scheme — with Salcedo making use of the colours à la poupée and Williams utilizing the viscosity method — to create a vigorous and celebratory scene.
Artist Joyce Wellman was excited by coloration, as nicely, and attended Reddy’s workshops alongside Williams. The 2 usually labored aspect by aspect within the open area of the print workshop and helped one another with the bodily and arduous means of printing. Wellman instructed me that Reddy taught her persistence and inspired her to suppose deeply concerning the plate and the supplies. His teachings went past the technical steps of printmaking, extending into the philosophical facets of making a murals.
Devraj Dakoji, “Evolution” (1995) (picture courtesy the archives of Robert Blackburn Printmaking Workshop)
“Reddy was a genius when it came to color,” Dakoji instructed me in an interview. “He was able to blend colors to produce energy in his prints.” Initially, he discovered viscosity sophisticated and technical and didn’t wish to hassle with it — that’s till he realized the method from Reddy in New York. He additionally realized to collaborate with painters and sculptors, one thing that was lacking in printmaking in India. Dakoji grew to become a grasp printer at Blackburn’s, happening to provide viscosity prints similar to “Evolution” (1995) and editioning works for different artists together with Indian artist M.F. Husain.
Kathy Caraccio was a monitor on the Printshop and Reddy’s assistant for a lot of of his viscosity workshops. “A lot of artists took that class — Bob Blackburn, Aj Smith, Otto Neals. It established a type of viscosity haven at Blackburn’s,” she instructed me. Though Caraccio was technically by no means a scholar of Reddy’s, she was influenced by him in her use of colours and radiating traces, as may be seen in early works similar to “Universe” (1972).
A number of Legacies
Spanning three continents and changing sculpture into intaglio printmaking, Krishna Reddy left behind a community of legacies, from experimentation in simultaneous coloration printmaking to creativity and inspiration for the artists he taught. Reddy firmly believed that working artists made the very best educators, and plenty of of his college students went on to show viscosity at universities, neighborhood artwork areas, and printshops.
But, even in his later years, he by no means considered himself because the instructor or skilled however a lifelong scholar. Marjana Pahor, a younger scholar of his within the Nineteen Nineties, fondly remembered her courses with him. Throughout an etching workshop during which Pahor was engaged on a composition portraying city life, Reddy would urge her to strive totally different methods to get the impact she needed after which ask her to elucidate her artistic course of to him. She remembers him telling her: “You taught me something new today.”
Krishna Reddy rolling ink over a metallic plate throughout a workshop at Robert Blackburn’s Printmaking Workshop (picture courtesy the archives of Robert Blackburn Printmaking Workshop)
Krishna Reddy, “Persian Gulf” (1991) (© Krishna Reddy Property; picture courtesy the archives of Robert Blackburn Printmaking Workshop)
Krishna Reddy working with a scholar throughout a workshop session (picture courtesy the archives of Robert Blackburn Printmaking Workshop)
