HYDERABAD: After a gap of five years, veteran artist Devraj Dakoji, brings forward his exhibition of printworks to Shrishti Art Gallery, Jubilee Hills. He’s a champion of lithographic printmaking in the country as the same is not that popular despite the fact that there are practitioners especially from the older generation of artists. They were also the ones to conduct workshops and art camps for the upcoming artists. Other than this genre, the 75-year-old artist has also been practising watercolours, pen, ink, and sumi ink drawings.
His earlier works on rocks and boulders, especially from the prehistoric era, offer the typically signature landscape of Hyderabad which the artist calls “conversations of stones as if they were people in flesh and blood.” The prints do not just capture the aesthetics of the ancient flint structures but also focus on the danger these rocks are in because of changing environment and lack of preservation methods.
However, the ongoing exhibition is of the recent works by the artist and is titled ‘Realities and Fantasies’. “Photolithography is what I practise because I made drawing on yupo paper which are plastic-like as it catches all details. Tracing is a problem in other types of paper, I used to take photographs and then transferred them to a litho plate. That’s my discovery. I get my paper from Japan. Almost a decade I have been using this technique. The paper manufacturers in Japan keep sending me samples,” says Devraj. He studied several techniques in New Mexico University (US), in 1992-93.
Born in Hyderabad, the artist completed his art studies in 1965 from the College of Fine Arts now Jawaharlal Nehru Architecture and Fine Arts University, (JNAFAU). His travels to the USA and Europe taught him more about the techniques of printmaking. In New York, where he stayed for several years, he spent a lot of time with the local artists practising at the noted Robert Blackburn Studio. After he came back to India in 1996, he set up a printmaking studio named ‘Atelier 2221’ in Delhi for aspiring artists to learn the nuances of printmaking. It was a private initiative. But unfortunately, it didn’t gather much popularity and after a few years was shut down. Later he again left for New York. Shanku Chaudhury gave the idea of printmaking studio to Indira Gandhi to which she agreed and later Lalit Kala Akademi chipped in but quite surprisingly he didn’t receive any funding for his venture.
“In India, Raja Ravi Varma would make prints. He collaborated with German artists. In late 1800, he started Lonawala studio with German technicians. They used to do colour separation by hand called chromolithography. They used to minutely study dots. Today we use only four colours. They used 38 colours. He made different sizes according to the budget of people. During the British time, artists used to come and they used to do etchings and study Indian landscape and architecture. Rembrandt made paintings and prints Albrecht Durer did the same,” he shares. He studied in London Chelsea School of Fine Art. He adds, “I received Lalit Kala Akademi scholarship to study at Baroda in 1967. “Laxma Goud, Surya prakash and I used to work in a garage. That was when I was living in Himayat Nagar. We set up the studio in PT Reddy’s house,” he adds.
He rues that people have this misconception about printmaking of it being just a medium of copying and not an art form. Now, he’s back in Hyderabad and has showcased his works in public after a gap of five years. He adds, “Thanks to Prof Krishna Reddy I got an artist’s residency at NYU. Later I taught at City College. Hussain came and wanted to make some prints on religious motifs. We printed his colourful lithographs. He would make a drawing and disappear. We used Chine-collé, an ancient technique, for his artworks. I did it for him and he was excited. It was in 1995.” He does lithographs and etchings. Sumi ink doesn’t absorb the paper, just stays on the surface. There are 27 works are on display as 12 of them are lithographs and the rest is sumi ink.
He had collaborated with the legendary MF Hussain, Gaitonde, Manu Parekh. Reminiscing his rendezvous with the master artist, he says, “I used to take Hussain to Old City for his prints of his lithographs.” He will be taking his exhibition to Mumbai after it gets over in Hyderabad.
The exhibition is on till February 25
— Saima Afreen
saima@newindianexpress
@Sfreen