Rm. Palaniappan stands at an important intersection as far as printmaking practices in Chennai go. Belonging to the second generation of post-Independence artists, he has created an impressive body of work that has grown slowly but exactly. Infrastructural support was one of the primary requirements of printmakers from his generation. In the early days, many proposals to set up independent printing workshops fell through, impeded by the prohibitive running costs of supplying materials such as paper, ink, and implements on a regular basis, apart from, of course, the unavailability of any capital to set the presses up. "We once tried to set up a printing workshop through a Dutch collaboration at the Cholamandal Artists' Village," recalls one of the artists working there, and adds,"People in general were so woefully unaware of the scope of a graphics workshop that we were often approached to get wedding invitations printed!"

As a teacher at the Graphics workshop of the Lalit Kala Akademi Regional Centre, Chennai, between 1982-97, Palaniappan (who is now the Secretary there), played a vital role in shaping and inspiring a generation of graphic artists and students. Palaniappan himself is quick to record the debt he owes to his teachers. "We were inspired by R. B. Bhaskaran (who now heads the Lalit Kala Akademi). His department at the college of art was one of the most outstanding. He had just come back after studying in England. The way he mixed different techniques, the absolute freedom with which he com-posed his plates, gave us a really good education."

Rm. Palaniappan. Flying Man.
Lithograph. 38 cms x 58 cms. 1980.

R. B. Bhaskaran's work ranges from formal figurative portraits that are best seen in his Wedding Portrait series (which carry images of couples culled from the stiffly posed studio portraits that hang in every South Indian house) to quirky Cats, exuberant plants, and highly textured forms, that get their charge from the frank sexual nature of their portrayal. More than anything else, what Bhaskaran tried to do as a teacher was to demonstrate that it was not the subject matter that made a print significant, but the way in which you seized the image and made it your own.

This was a time (in the '60s and the '70s), when the Madras School established its own iconographic standards. According to the art historian, Josef James, Devi Prasad Roy Chowdhury, who was the Principal of the Government College of Arts and Crafts, made some of the earliest prints in the city. In those days, the college had a strong metal works and engraving section. Setting up printmaking facilities was seen as a logical extension, and by the early '60s, the college had a workshop equipped to make lino-cuts, woodcuts, stencils, lithographs, etchings, engravings, and silkscreen prints. At Cholamandal as well, the work of the artists involved a strong craft element. Besides batik prints that were extensively produced as a means for artists to earn a livelihood while pursuing their individual practices, colographs were also made.

Artists were not only motivated to think 'in print', as it were, but they were also inspired to incorporate many printing 'effects' in their works in other genres. The ink drawings and washes of K. M. Adimoolam, for instance, have a print-like feel. The dominant character of the South Indian artist has been his capacity to explore the line and its fluidity. A. P. Pannerselvam emerged, in due course of time, as a dedicated and distinguished printmaker from Madras: he was amongst the first few South Indian artists to win a National Award for one of his prints. Pannerselvam moved to Delhi to avail of sophisticated printing technology as also to develop his skills. In Paris, he worked under William Hayter and Krishna Reddy, whose innovative techniques have shaped the trajectories of many young printmakers. Thotaa Tharani, better known as an art director for films, also studied at William Hayter's Atelier 17 and at the Garhi workshop, Delhi: he experimented with printmaking techniques, creating textures and special effects, especially by using tape to mask certain areas of the plate and by developing new ways of super-imposing different parts of the plate to create collage-like effects.

In the early days, the printmaker community was not only small but also rather underexposed. As Palaniappan recalls, visits from/collaborations with printmakers from countries like Germany, U.K., or the U.S.A. (where printmaking had already come a long way), were always met with great enthusiasm. Interactions with Paul Lingren, from the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, for instance, had a lasting influence on several printmakers. Young printmakers from Madras also looked forward to studying at the Garhi workshop: here, as many of them recall, it was the dedicated and inspired tutelage of masters like D. Devaraj that made the experience enriching.

Through an interesting combination of intense isolation and periodic sojourns in different parts of the country, Rm. Palaniappan absorbed diverse influences in small, carefully calibrated doses: one can see this best in his Berlin series. Though one is, in fact, looking here at a specific series as being representative of a lifetime of spatial, philosophic, and technical exploration, one does feel that this series comprises his most significant works. It's almost like as if all the paths that Palaniappan had been taking were to lead to that singular moment-when he first set his eyes upon the Reichstag, the German Parliamentary building in Berlin, around which the series is based.