A printer, perhaps, should be defined by the permanence of his output. But for Michel Caza, who passed away on 23 May (Saturday) at 5:30 pm, the definition of his career must be found in the relentless pursuit of the next impression. He was an artist, an engineer, a technician, and an art-screen printer, a combination that earned him the title of “the chameleon of contemporary art”. He spent nine decades living a life he loved, forever convinced that the possibilities of ink on mesh were far greater than the limits of convention.
For Caza, convention itself was often the problem. He carried throughout his life what his wife affectionately called a “monomania”, an intense concentration and curiosity that stretched from screen printing to digital technologies, art, philosophy and science. He refused to accept the word “impossible” until he had tested it himself. In a 2011 conversation with PrintWeek, he remarked with quiet certainty, “I have always succeeded in printing something that was judged to be impossible.” That sentence now reads less like a boast and more like a biography.
Caza’s professional journey began not with a grand vision but with a chance encounter. Born in Lyon, France, he was a student in Stockholm at the age of 19 when he first encountered screen printing, falling instantly for its unique marriage of craft and technology. The irony would probably have amused him. Before screen printing entered his life, Caza was studying psycho sociology and journalism in Sweden. Screen printing initially paid for his student life in Stockholm. “I thought screen printing was much more fun than sociology,” he once said with characteristic frankness. A student job became a profession, and eventually a vocation.
This fascination led him to establish his own company, Graficaza, in 1962, the same year he co-founded the organisation that would become his institutional anchor: FESPA. He was the last surviving founder of the body, which, through his dedication, touched thousands of printers globally. He remained a constant and vital presence for decades, serving 24 years on the FESPA board, including two terms as President from 1996 to 1999 and again from 2000 to 2002.
Caza’s true distinction lay in his profound technical audacity, often applied to the high-stakes world of fine art. For a generation of art collectors, his work defined the very term serigraphy. He was renowned for his mastery of ultra-fine prints and was never content with merely "good enough". His ambition was always for sharper detail, richer colour and greater consistency, which required him to constantly experiment and challenge conventional wisdom.
His studio became a laboratory for giants of contemporary art. He collaborated with hundreds of artists, including some of the most recognisable names of the 20th century: Marc Chagall, Joan Miro, Roy Lichtenstein and Salvador Dalí. A single year, 1973, was dedicated to screen printing The Alchemy of Philosophers portfolio for Dalí, which included screen printing a thick gold in relief on the cover. Later, when working with Leonor Fini on the Carmilla portfolio in 1984, he circumvented the roughness of Velin d'Arches paper by flattening it under a copper plate, a process borrowed from dry etching, before applying matte UV inks.
His technical breakthroughs were legendary. He once printed an astonishing 100 colours on a piece in the 1970s purely as a "challenge". But such feats were eventually made redundant by his own ingenuity. In the 1960s, he invented "halftones without dots", a technique that allowed full colour jobs to be printed with just 9 to 14 colours, later refined to seven, eliminating the historical need for dozens of separations.
Yet for all the awards, technologies and patents, Caza remained a teacher at heart. To him, knowledge was never a secret to be hoarded. As a leader, he believed that the best method to strengthen the industry was through open collaboration and sharing. He was tireless in this mission, serving as an international screen and digital printing consultant for the last 14 years of his life and sharing his insights through books and conferences globally.
His influence was particularly potent in India, where he was regarded as a "guru" and maintained a "huge fan following". He not only conducted workshops and inaugurated the DMI screen printing training facility in 2006, but his technical contributions were translated and featured in publications like PrintWeek, even when couched in his charming "Frenglish". He insisted that his followers, like Bhargav Mistry, the managing director of Grafica, learn serigraphy the “Cazaway process”.
India, in many ways, became his second emotional home. His connection with the country ran deeper than technology. In the late 1960s, he became involved with the early creation of Auroville in Puducherry, spending months helping shape parts of the ambitious project. He fell in love with India’s philosophies, pluralism and spirit of acceptance. He often spoke warmly about its people and found himself returning repeatedly, not merely as a consultant but almost as a pilgrim.
He once described his relationship with Bhargav Mistry as something beyond friendship, “between a pupil and his Guru and mostly between a pita and a beta.” Few statements reveal the man better. For Caza, mentorship was never transactional. Relationships mattered. Knowledge mattered. People mattered.
For many in India, Caza represented possibility itself. Young printers attended his workshops expecting technical lessons and left with something larger. They encountered someone who looked at printing not merely as production but as philosophy. His message to Indian printers remained remarkably simple. Get better each day. Pay attention to detail. Respect the process. Learn from a Guru. And above all, remain curious.
In his later years, even as Caza's company Graficaza, sold in 2004, faded, he continued to print fine art near Paris, often with the artist Fabienne Verdier, and even produced serigraphs for his wife Therese, a painter and Yoga teacher.
Caza’s enduring wisdom was that screen printing was not obsolete, but rather in a state of “full rush and gush”. He saw vast and increasingly industrial applications for the process, from graphics and textiles to electronics and medical fields. He often reminded printers of something larger. Screen printing was not an industry. It was a technology used by many industries. It had to evolve, collaborate and coexist. He never saw digital as an enemy. He encouraged printers to embrace it, adapt and keep imagining. Even in his eighties, he still spoke like a student discovering new possibilities.
Michel Caza taught the world that the discipline of print demands not just mechanical precision, but intellectual and artistic rigour.
Michel Caza proved to all his friends and fans in India that the screen printing press is merely a machine until a master decides it can do better, and then shows the world how.
PrintWeek will miss you, o' maestro!
If you have a story or anecdote about Michel Caza or you want to pay him tribute through PrintWeek, please write to Noel D'Cunha at noel@haymarket.co.in.