Anupam Sud

That Anupam Sud is one of the most prominent printmakers in the country is a given, even though it would be unfair to limit so versatile an artist to only being a printmaker. Indeed, her body of work includes paintings, drawings, sculpture, bookmaking—and as you will see through the pages of the book accompanying the exhibition, a record-keeper observing the passage of time with self-portraits that she has undertaken to make periodically. A role-model for generations of artists and printmakers through her work and for her influence as a teacher at the prestigious College of Art, New Delhi, Anupam Sud’s name evokes recognition around the world where she has admirers, collectors of her work, and students who have trained under her.

Her legion of admirers says she is driven by her work and is passionate to the exclusion of much else when it comes to printmaking. She maintains meticulous records, is punctiliously organised, and has a sense of history of her work that made the curator’s work simpler as well as more difficult—since the figures in her extensive body of work can recur after years and even decades. The curator of the show, Dr. Paula Sengupta was, of course, a natural choice as she is a printmaker herself, a former student of Anupam Sud, and, like her mentor, an academician too. The exhaustive work she has undertaken on her former teacher is likely to be the most detailed account of Sud’s work and life—both of which are closely intertwined.

The role of Amanpreet Singh, also an alumnus of the College of Art, New Delhi, has been invaluable in sieving through the documents, proofs and prints along with the artist to make sure her work is represented sans any mistakes.