OBITUARY: Yakubbhai Ramkdawala Founding Father of Screen Printing in Gujarat Passes Away
19 December 2023: Homage to one of the pioneers, also known as the founding father of Screen Printing in Gujarat by Founder-Editor of Screen Print India Magazine.
Yakubbhai Yusufbhai Ramkdawala, passed away at the age of 85 years. Considered to be one of the pioneers, also known as the founding father of Screen Printing in Gujarat, he departed for the heavenly abode on 6th December 2023 in Ahmedabad after being unwell from the last 6-8 months due to age and health related issues.
He is survived by his son Siraj and daughter Sameera. Those who learnt and developed skills under his guidance over the decades are today established screen printers spread all over India, UAE, Kuwait, Egypt and many overseas countries, probably numbering in the hundreds.
Yakubbhai started experimenting with screen printing in the year 1963 (around 60 years ago) when there was not much knowledge or informative material available on the screen printing process.
He started by initially helping out his father in their family business of toys manufacturing. Earlier, they used to paint the toys once they were ready, but Yakubbhai started to screen print the stickers and used to paste them on the toys to make them more attractive and realistic at that time.
During the initial years he travelled a lot to know as much as possible about the screen printing process techniques as it was quite an innovative concept at that time and was also nascent in India. Slowly and steadily he became experienced and well-knowledgeable in screen printing.
Right up to the last stage of his life, he used to regularly visit his son’s printing factory, which is situated in Jamalpur area in Ahmedabad. His son has a four colour screen printing unit, which undertakes printing on school bags and is also technologically innovative, offering something different in today’s markets.
Yakubbhai used to regularly visit the printing exhibition all over India and he used to also visit the Middle East where his students had leading printing units.
I had the privilege to meet him in 1994 in Mumbai when I organised the Screen Print India 1994 expo. With his selfless and easy going nature we became very good friends and we used to meet regularly once or twice in year when he used to visit Mumbai.
In year 2010, we covered his article in Screen Print India magazine. On visiting his printing unit, I was astonished to see his passion and love for screen printing.
Since the last few years he was helping the industry and guiding students while his printing unit was being taken care by his son. He was always passionate to learn new developments and techniques in printing and how to adapt in development of new products.
I will always miss a mentor, my personal friend and very humble person who has played an important role in changing the lives of hundreds of his students and well-wishers. He was always a very supportive and down to earth person. I will always cherish my meetings and friendship with him.
