This article is part of a series focusing on underrepresented craft histories, researched and written by the 2024 Craft Archive Fellows, and organized in collaboration with the Center for Craft.
The late Indian-American printmaker Krishna Reddy was a daring artist and lifelong educator who extended his interest in sculpture to carving into a metal plate, transforming the way we use color in printmaking today. His philosophy as an artist and teacher was that the joy of creation should not be a solitary act. On the occasion of his 1981–82 retrospective at the Bronx Museum, he explained his reasoning to an interviewer: “Once you experience it, why not see if somebody else can use it?”
Reddy experimented deeply with materials and, based upon a chance encounter, collaboratively developed a new technique that simplified the process of printing different colors in intaglio. The technique he perfected — variously known as viscosity, mixed color intaglio, or intaglio simultaneous color printing — uses just one plate and layers colored inks of different viscosities with specialized rollers to create a multicolored image in just one pass through a press. Previously, every color required its own etched plate; creating a multicolor image is a careful and laborious process of ensuring the layers of colors lined up correctly.
Reddy firmly believed that practicing artists made the best teachers, and he inspired others to experience the same satisfaction in the creative process. The Robert Blackburn Printmaking Workshop, the oldest and longest-running community print shop in the United States, was one of the first places Reddy taught printmaking in New York City in 1968. There, he continued to offer workshops and demonstration classes for over 30 years. Blackburn, a Black American printmaker, established his workshop in 1947 and soon established it as a collaborative haven for printmakers from all over the world, especially artists of color. Dozens of prints and sculptures from Reddy’s body of work are on view at the Print Center New York in Krishna Reddy: Heaven in a Wildflower, running through May 21. The organization will also offer public programming and workshops in the spring to extend the dialogue on Reddy in tandem with the Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts Robert Blackburn Printmaking Workshop Program, whose show Krishna Reddy and the Printmaking Workshop, which I curated, opens on March 1. I collected oral histories from several artists who studied with Reddy at Blackburn’s workshop to understand the pioneering spirit of his teaching of viscosity techniques, how he traversed the continuum of craft and art, and what it means to be a collaborative printmaker.
Artistic Development and Atelier 17
Krishna Reddy’s early educational experiences in India greatly shaped his later artistic philosophies. Born in Andhra Pradesh, India, in 1925, he was fortunate to be able to attend the Rishi Valley School, established by philosopher Jiddu Krishnamurti on the principles of inquiry, self-awareness, and lifelong learning. Later, at the art school of Visva-Bharati at Shantiniketan, a college founded by poet and Nobel Prize recipient Rabindranath Tagore, Reddy explored his interest in sculpture while fostering a connection with the natural world. In 1949, he traveled to Europe and studied sculpture with Henry Moore and then Ossip Zadkine, who recognized Reddy’s graphic potential and suggested 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 known as a place for artists such as Max Ernst, Alberto Giacometti, and Joan Miro to experiment and collaborate. In the vast, open-layout space of the print studio, ideas flowed freely. Hayter was not interested in the commercial aspects of printing and encouraged artists to learn from each other and collaborate with master printers at the Atelier.
Reddy learned traditional black and white etching at Visva-Bharati, but at Atelier 17, he was able to experiment with applying color to his prints. Reddy worked on a metal plate as he would a sculpture, digging and gouging out the plate with hand tools to carve deep reliefs that created images with dynamic movement and expression. A drop of spilled linseed oil created an opportunity for Reddy, along with fellow Indian artist Kaiko Moti and Hayter, to experiment with applying colored inks in the most direct way possible. Reddy continued to develop single plate color printing or viscosity throughout his life and became its best-known practitioner. He never let go of the joy of creating and offered artists a new way to think about color, texture, and form.
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 those from Europe’s former colonies. Both established and emerging artists freely mingled and shared ideas in the city’s cafes and each other’s studios. Per the Bronx Museum retrospective’s catalog, Blackburn poetically described meeting Reddy serendipitously in the spring of 1953 near 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 with his own philosophy of not imposing aesthetic boundaries on artists.
During one of Reddy’s visits to New York in 1968, Blackburn invited him to teach at his Printshop. Beyond their mutual respect, Reddy and Blackburn also shared similarities in their approaches to printmaking and teaching. They treated students as equals, as artists embarking on their own journey of creativity and technical discovery. Blackburn cultivated a welcoming, imaginative environment that was famous for its spirit of openness and inclusion, which attracted diverse and international artists who took Reddy’s viscosity workshops — many of whom continued to work in viscosity throughout their careers.
Artist and sculptor Michael Kelly Williams, who first encountered Reddy while taking his classes at Blackburn’s in the late 1970s, told me that he credits Reddy with fostering a sense of collaboration and experimentation in his own printmaking. For the print “West Indian Day Parade” (1983), Williams worked with fellow artist Helio Salcedo to draw out the images on an abandoned plate using engraving, metal stamps, and textural effects. They experimented with the color scheme — with Salcedo applying the colors à la poupée and Williams using the viscosity technique — to create a lively and celebratory scene.
Artist Joyce Wellman was interested in color, as well, and attended Reddy’s workshops alongside Williams. The two often worked side by side in the open space of the print workshop and helped each other with the physical and arduous process of printing. Wellman told me that Reddy taught her persistence and encouraged her to think deeply about the plate and the materials. His teachings went beyond the technical steps of printmaking, extending into the philosophical aspects of creating a work of art.
Learning about Reddy in the ’70s through Indian newspaper clippings, Indian artist Devraj Dakoji enrolled in his workshop on color viscosity. He believes that no one knew as much about color printmaking as Reddy.
“Reddy was a genius when it came to color,” Dakoji told me in an interview. “He was able to blend colors to produce energy in his prints.” Initially, he found viscosity complicated and technical and didn’t want to bother with it — that is until he learned the process from Reddy in New York. He also learned to collaborate with painters and sculptors, something that was missing in printmaking in India. Dakoji became a master printer at Blackburn’s, going on to produce viscosity prints such as “Evolution” (1995) and editioning works for other artists including Indian artist M.F. Husain.
Kathy Caraccio was a monitor at the Printshop and Reddy’s assistant for many 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 told me. Even though Caraccio was technically never a student of Reddy’s, she was influenced by him in her use of colors and radiating lines, as can be seen in early works such as “Universe” (1972).
Multiple Legacies
Spanning three continents and converting sculpture into intaglio printmaking, Krishna Reddy left behind a network of legacies, from experimentation in simultaneous color printmaking to creativity and inspiration for the artists he taught. Reddy firmly believed that working artists made the best educators, and many of his students went on to teach viscosity at universities, community art spaces, and printshops.
Yet, even in his later years, he never thought of himself as the teacher or expert but a lifelong student. Marjana Pahor, a young student of his in the 1990s, fondly remembered her classes with him. During an etching workshop in which Pahor was working on a composition portraying urban life, Reddy would urge her to try different techniques to get the effect she wanted and then ask her to explain her creative process to him. She recalls him telling her: “You taught me something new today.”
