Krishna Reddy is a famous engraver and teacher. He was born in India, into a peasant family. Despite the fact that until the age of 11 the boy could hardly read and write, he showed incredible ability to engage in art. Already from the age of six, Krishna began to paint frescoes, copying mythological scenes. In the 50s, Reddy moved from India to Paris and, according to his own recollections, immediately found himself in the flow of bohemian life in the city.

“There was one small street, and all the influential artists gathered there,” he recalled. Krishna Reddy met regularly with Alberto Giacometti and every Tuesday he saw Constantin Brancusi, a French sculptor with Romanian roots. At the Montparnasse café, he discussed with colleagues the mixture of spiritualism (which he learned from his first teacher, the philosopher Jiddu Krishnamurti) and European modernism. There he invented innovations that he later used in his technology.

Krishna Reddy joined Atelier 17, where he and Stanley William Heitor worked on the knitted printing technique. Its uniqueness lay in the fact that several colors were applied to one printing plate. And so that the paints did not “contaminate” each other, they were separated by layers of linseed oil. One of the most significant works of the Indian artist created in this technique is “Whirpool”. In 1963 it became part of the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

The artist was inspired primarily by nature. But he was not far from politics. Krishna Reddy was repeatedly called in for questioning by the police. The reason for this was the posters he created in support of the Algerian revolution. The Indian master also became famous as a teacher. In 1976, he founded the Color Print Atelier studio at New York University. In addition, Reddy has conducted master classes all over the world. On August 22, 2018, the world learned the news of the engraver’s death.