Germination
Maker
Krishna Reddy
(India, 1925 - 2018)
Date1961
MediumEtching and engraving, inked intaglio and relief (color viscosity / simultaneous color inking) on paper
DimensionsIMAGE: 11 7/8 x 17 3/8 in. (301.6 x 441.3 mm)
SHEET: 19 5/8 x 25 3/4 in. (498.5 x 654 mm)
SHEET: 19 5/8 x 25 3/4 in. (498.5 x 654 mm)
Object TypePrints
Credit LineKSU, Marianna Kistler Beach Museum of Art
Edition6/20
Object number1987.1
On View
On view• This print from the museum collection is not dated, but based on current research, we believe it is from 1964. Reddy created two prints titled Germination. The first, Germination I, was completed in 1961. In 1964, Reddy reworked the plate of Germination I to produce a second version he entitled Germination.
• In the catalogue for his 1984 exhibition in Calcutta, India, the artist wrote about Germination: “In comparison to ‘Germination I’ I find this plate more powerful and more spontaneous. I tried imagining a 100 year-old tree caught in time ad space. I separated that portion of time and tried to reduce it — first into hours, then into minutes, seconds, and so on and ultimately into a moment. Like a time-lapse photograph we can watch the speed of the movements of the growing tree and the overwhelming culmination of the explosion when time is reduced to a moment.”
• Reddy, who had studied sculpture before becoming a printmaker, was equally interested in the variety of surfaces he could sculpt as he was with the prints resulting from those sculpted copper plates. He wrote about experimenting with drills “to make deep pits or hollows that would print white.”
• In the catalogue for his 1984 exhibition in Calcutta, India, the artist wrote about Germination: “In comparison to ‘Germination I’ I find this plate more powerful and more spontaneous. I tried imagining a 100 year-old tree caught in time ad space. I separated that portion of time and tried to reduce it — first into hours, then into minutes, seconds, and so on and ultimately into a moment. Like a time-lapse photograph we can watch the speed of the movements of the growing tree and the overwhelming culmination of the explosion when time is reduced to a moment.”
• Reddy, who had studied sculpture before becoming a printmaker, was equally interested in the variety of surfaces he could sculpt as he was with the prints resulting from those sculpted copper plates. He wrote about experimenting with drills “to make deep pits or hollows that would print white.”
Exhibitions
