Mukul Dey

Mukul Chandra Dey is considered as a pioneer of drypoint-etching in India. He was the first Indian artist to travel abroad for the purpose of studying printmaking as an art. For the portrayal of Indian life, Dey essentially chose Western medium. He concentrated on dry-point etching which not common to the Indian painting culture. He chose Indian subjects such as river scenes in Bengal or traditional baul singers, even when his medium of potrayal and techniques were Western. Some of his finer works are dry-point etchings that have been hand-colored with watercolors, colored pencils, or thin washes of ink. In 1928, he became the first Indian to be appointed as the principal of the Government School of Art, Calcutta.