The Tool Desk
PC Slower Than It Used to Be?
A free scan shows the junk files, broken settings and background clutter dragging Windows down - then fixes them in one click.Free scan · Windows 10 & 11Outdated Drivers Are Slowing You Down
One free scan finds every outdated or missing driver and matches the right update for your exact hardware.Free scan · exact hardware matchOutbyte PC Repair FREEClear out junk files and repair common Windows errorsFree Scan →Outbyte Driver Updater FREEFix the driver behind crashes, sound loss and screen glitchesFind Drivers →
ThatPainter is reader-supported. When you buy through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Learn More
Experimenter’s To a New Form was a historical exhibition, held at the gallery’s Hindustan Road space in Kolkata from January 18 to March 31, 2019. It brought together drawings, etched metal plates and prints to show how Krishna Reddy explored form across drawing, printmaking and sculpture. At the heart of that story was viscosity printing, the multicolor intaglio process Reddy helped develop with Stanley William Hayter and other artists at Atelier 17 in Paris.
What did To a New Form show?
The exhibition made the stages of Reddy’s printmaking unusually visible. Visitors could see rare drawings and studies alongside zinc and copper etching plates and prints made from them. The arrangement linked repeated drawing to the physical work of cutting, etching and inking a plate: the printed image was presented not as an isolated result, but as part of a larger process of making.
As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
What’s actually slowing this PC down?
Pick the symptom - the matching free tool is one click away.
Experimenter also placed early prints beside their plates, so viewers could compare the impressions with the depth and texture of the worked metal. “The Great Clown” appeared in a series demonstrating Reddy’s viscosity technique. These examples were part of a broader display; the gallery’s release does not provide a complete checklist of works.
The exhibition’s title drew on Reddy’s idea that form changes as it passes through a medium. The Metropolitan Museum of Art reproduces an excerpt from his Paris notebooks from the 1950s: “The same way as the sound transforms into light waves through a medium, the visual form if expressed spontaneously in any medium like in words, music, colour, stone, metal, etc., a completely new form results.” The passage was not written for the 2019 show; it offers a way to understand the exhibition’s attention to transformation across materials.
#1 Best Overall
- Walter Foster Creative Books-Art Lab For Kids
How does viscosity printing work?
Viscosity printing allows an artist to print multiple colors from a single worked plate in one pass. The colors do not depend only on separate areas of the image: inks with different thicknesses respond differently to the plate’s varied surfaces and to the rollers used to apply them.
- Work the plate. Marks at different depths and textures create surfaces that can hold or release ink in different ways.
- Prepare inks of different weights. Experimenter describes Reddy mixing paints with varying quantities of linseed oil so that the colors would not contaminate one another.
- Apply ink with different rollers. The Met’s technical account describes hard and soft rollers applying inks of different weights to the plate.
- Make the impression. The differently inked plate is printed in a single pass, producing a multicolor image shaped by both the plate’s surface and the behavior of the inks.
The approach draws on both relief and intaglio principles, as the Met explains in its account of the technique. It is more than a way to add several colors at once: the relationship among plate texture, ink thickness, roller and impression is part of how the image is made.
Why was the plate important to Reddy?
Reddy approached the metal plate as an artistic object with sculptural qualities, an outlook connected to his three-dimensional training. In this view, the plate is not simply a tool that disappears once a print is pulled. Its marks, relief and textures shape the image, while the act of inking adds another layer of decisions.
The Met’s collection record for Wave notes that the print’s texture derives both from the incised plate and from how it was inked. That is a useful way to understand the close connection between Reddy’s printmaking and sculpture: the printed surface carries traces of a material object that has been deliberately shaped.
What subjects did Reddy explore?
Experimenter connected the works’ imagery to Reddy’s sustained attention to the human form and the natural world. The gallery names butterflies, trees, waves, spiders’ webs and blossoms among his recurring subjects. These forms often appear in dreamlike compositions that draw on abstraction and surrealism. The Philadelphia Museum of Art’s later account also describes imagery of seeds, flowers, insects, water and the human figure.
His interest in transformation extended beyond subject matter. A familiar natural form could be reworked through changes in line, plate texture and color, allowing the impression to become a new interpretation rather than a straightforward record of what was seen.
Rank #4
- Natural colored and lightweight printing paper
- Perfect for relief printing, screen printing, practicing, and proofing
- 120 gsm with medium textured surface that is soft, durable, and absorbent
- 8"x10" Glue Bound
- 40 Sheets per Pad
How should Reddy’s contribution to viscosity printing be credited?
Reddy helped develop multicolor viscosity printing at Atelier 17 in Paris with Hayter and other participants. The Met describes the method as a collaborative development within the workshop. Experimenter’s press release gives Reddy a stronger role, crediting him with developing and inventing the process. It is most precise to attribute that formulation to the gallery rather than present sole invention as an uncontested fact.
Reddy’s contribution also sits within a broader artistic and teaching career. Experimenter describes his early study at Santiniketan with Ramkinkar Baij and Nandalal Bose, further sculpture study in London, and work in Paris with Ossip Zadkine before his Atelier 17 period. The Met notes his study at Kala Bhavana in Santiniketan and his later encounter with Hayter in Paris, placing the workshop within an international community of artists.
Best Value
How did Reddy’s work continue after Paris?
After moving from Paris to New York in 1976, Reddy established the Color Print Atelier and directed graphics and printmaking at New York University until 2002, according to Experimenter. The gallery emphasizes the atelier’s role as a teaching space for artists, including newcomers to the United States. A 2026 exhibition description from JNAF likewise frames Reddy’s legacy through his work as an artist, teacher and facilitator.
The Philadelphia Museum of Art’s 2025 exhibition, Krishna Reddy: The Movement of Life, offered a separate institutional interpretation of his process. It connected his iterative practice—reworking plates or changing color combinations—to his spiritual beliefs and to his idea that each printing could give a composition new life. That exhibition is distinct from Experimenter’s 2019 To a New Form.
Recommended Free Tools
Quick Recap
Product prices and availability are accurate as of the date/time indicated and are subject to change. Any price and availability information displayed on Amazon at the time of purchase will apply.
