Achyut Palav- India’s Best Calligrapher
Achyut Palav is a calligrapher based in Mumbai, India. He is widely known for his expressive and experimental calligraphy using the Indian Devanagari Script. He is said to be one of India’s best calligraphers and has won many awards including the Maharashtra Film Award, Communication Guild Award, and the Kala …
Achyut Palav is a calligrapher based in Mumbai, India. He is widely known for his expressive and experimental calligraphy using the Indian Devanagari Script. He is said to be one of India’s best calligraphers and has won many awards including the Maharashtra Film Award, Communication Guild Award, and the Kala Ratna Award. He has also gone on to start the Achyut Palav School of Calligraphy.
My classmates at École intuit.lab and I were lucky to attend a workshop held by him and see his work in action! The thing that I found the most impressive about his work is that he seemed to work so effortlessly even while working on an enormous scroll of paper.
The thing that makes Achyut so popular and sets him apart from other calligraphers is that he treats calligraphy as not only an art form but an expressive medium. He pays special attention to the beauty in the vertical, horizontal and angular lines of the various scripts.
Achyut Palav’s work is both traditional and experimental, he uses a variety of tools ranging from traditional brushes and calligraphy tools, to toothbrushes, shaving brushes, syringes and squeeze mops. His work is also translated to different mediums like paper, but now he experiments with various surfaces like canvas, the cover of a keyboard, slate, ceramic tiles and wooden sets.