Mukul Dey

1920–7

Mukul Dey was an artist who specialized in dry-point etching. He studied at Rabindranath Tagore's school at Santiniketan. From 1911 his paintings appeared in monthly magazines in Calcutta, and then in 1913–14 the Indian Society of Oriental Art sent his paintings to Paris, London and other European cities for exhibition with the works of other students of Abanindranath Tagore. W. W. Pearson inspired Dey to work with dry point by giving him copper plates to scratch with a steel pointed needle and then sent these plates to London to be printed. In 1916 Dey accompanied Rabindranath Tagore on his tour of Japan and the US. In 1919 Dey went to the Ajanta and Bagh caves; his experiences were published in My Pilgrimages to Ajanta and Bagh.

In 1920 Dey went to London and was received by his old friend W. W. Pearson. Dey worked in Muirhead Bone's studio until he joined the Slade School of Art in London. In his holidays he worked at the King Alfred co-educational school in north London. In 1922 Dey was the first Indian to receive the Diploma in Mural Painting from the Royal College of Art. Dey regularly exhibited in London and met many prominent British figures in the art and literary world such as Thomas Sturge Moore, Edwin Lutyens, Laurence Binyon and Selwyn Image. His work was exhibited at the Royal Academy in London in 1923 and he decorated a portion of the Indian Pavilion at the Wembley British Empire Exhibition in 1924.

In 1927 Dey returned to India. In 1928 he became the first Indian Principal of the Government School of Art and Craft in Calcutta, a post he held until 1943. He continued to tour his work and remained an influential figure in India until his death in 1989.