Mukul Chandra Dey was an early student of Rabindranath Tagore at Santiniketan. He is considered to be a pioneer of drypoint etching in India. In 1916, Dey travelled to the USA and Japan to learn printmaking. On his return to India, he used this European medium to create hundreds of Indian lives and people.
Dey later became the first Indian Principal of the Government College of Art in Calcutta.