Print Museum

Dear Member and Print Industry Stakeholder!

We solicit your support for the Association’s goal to found a Printing Museum in Mumbai. The project is currently in its planning stage, and we are looking for support in various forms to help bring it to fruition. And soon enough and hopefully with collaboration from members and industry it will be ready.

We believe this Printing Museum will be an invaluable resource for preserving and sharing the history of printing technology, as well as educating future generations on the importance of this industry. Which is why it is planned as a gift from our industry to the city of Mumbai, members of the society and humanity at large.

To that end, we are seeking donations of antique machinery, books, and other materials that can help us tell this story. Funding is another aspect that we would like to delve into but in the foreseeable future.

Your support would be greatly appreciated and would help us to make this vision a reality. We would be happy to discuss any questions you may have about the project and provide more information on how you can contribute. Simply write to us via email to [email protected]

In the year 1674, a printing press ordered by an Indian businessman arrived on the shores of western India from London. This marked the beginning of a glorious tradition of print which continues to flourish in this region 350 years later. Print has always played an important role in all aspects of human endeavour and is perhaps one of the seminal developments of human culture. To celebrate and commemorate this long engagement with print, the Bombay Master Printers Association and PrintWeek propose the setting up of a print museum for Mumbai and Western India. Murali Ranganathan, print historian and author, will provide curatorial assistance for the print museum.

Mumbai Print Museum

The Mumbai Print Museum will showcase the rich printing tradition and the technological evolution of print with a special focus on print in the city and its environs. Housing printing equipment from the era of typography and lithography, metal foundry, hot-metal typesetting and photo typesetting, it will serve as a repository for a bygone age. It will also collect and display print products from rare books, posters, packaging, and other print ephemera.

As the years progress, the Mumbai Print Museum will seek to become a self-sustaining full-fledged print museum with a permanent site in a prominent Mumbai location. It will serve as a resource to understand how printing was done before the digital revolution. The focus of the museum is the ‘History of Printing in Mumbai and Western India’.

The print museum will evolve into a landmark in the cultural map of the city which will welcome both citizens and visitors in large numbers.

How can the printing and packaging industry help?

This is a long-term project which will require the support of all constituents of the printing and packaging industry. Print practitioners with a long multi-generational heritage in the printing industry will be the crucial source who will determine the success of this endeavour. Machines and print paraphernalia from earlier periods, whether in a working condition or mothballed, are welcome. For example, this could be an early nineteenth-century Albion Press or the final models of Linotype and Monotype manufactured in the 1980s. Or it could be copper matrices of Indian typefaces from the early 1900s and film negatives used for phototypesetting in the 1970s. Or printing press manuals or product brochures. The list is endless.

Your whole-hearted participation is solicited for this exciting venture. Please fill up the form, scan and email it to [email protected]. We look forward to hearing from you.

Thank You!