Drawing the net, Karatoa River, Pabna, East Bengal

Mukul Dey trained under the famous painter-etcher James Blanding Sloan of Chicago and pushed the limits of etching as a technique. He moulded it according to the visual and aesthetic vocabularies of the Indian subcontinent. Drawing on the languid colour palettes of the Bengal School aesthetic, he also explored subtle shades and gradients. Dey’s oeuvre consists of rural landscapes, tinged with a nostalgic longing for the countryside. In this 1974 etching of the Karatoa River in the Pabna district of Bangladesh, he captures a familiar scene of fishermen drawing their nets. To convey the boundless expanse of the river, the sharp black tone of the boat is placed against a light brown-grey background, where the river and the sky indistinguishably blend into each other.