U. Ray and Sons
U. Ray and Sons was a privately held blockmaking, printing and publishing firm in Calcutta, India founded by Upendrakishore Ray in 1895. At its inception the firm was named U. Ray after its owner; and Sons was added in 1900 when his son Sukumar Ray joined the firm. It was notable for internationally pioneering work in halftone process work. The firm became bankrupt in 1926, but the business was revived under a new owner in 1929. The Successor of this printing press is Ayan Banerjee. Blockmaking Business

U. Ray and Sons was primarily set up as an initiative to remedy the lack of cost-effective metal blocks for the  printing of illustrations in Calcutta in spite of the existence of good printing presses in the early 1890s. Upendrakishore, a versatile genius, excelling in the fields of children's literature, music, painting and printing technology could not therefore have first grade illustrations published for his Children’s Ramayan. A lack of skill in graphic arts and photo-processes resulted in ruined print illustrations. 'At that time, only a few local firms like Thacker and Spincks (of Thacker's Indian Directory) took commercial orders for halftone blocks but they were very costly. Being of an inventive and mechanical turn of mind, Upendrakishore ordered the necessary equipment from A.W. Penrose & Co., of 109 Farringdon Street, London, and began to study the technical nature of the subject. 'A camera and various pieces of half-tone equipment [arrived] from Britain […] by bullock cart; soon after that, they moved out of 13 Cornwallis Street to a house not far away at Shibnarain Dass Lane, which Upendrakisore had made into a residence-cum-business premises, including a studio. The firm first advertised in 1895 that they were undertaking bromide enlargements and half-tone printmaking. Within two years of the establishment of the firm, advertisements appeared in the Amrita Bazar Patrika on 25 November 1896 (the leading daily newspaper of its time) stating the undertaking of 'half-tone block bromide enlargements of the highest quality only' and 'half-tone block from photograph etc. at Rupee One.' Another advertisement appeared in the same newspaper on 2 July 1897 and provides more details-

                                     HALF-TONE BLOCKS :

   U. Ray begs leave to state that by his new method of half-tone engraving
      he is prepared to give result as very few persons in the world have
       hitherto produced. He can now undertake to make half-tone blocks 
    of the following degrees of fineness of grain : 75, 85, 120, 133, 170, 
     240 and 266 lines to the inch. The patterns he can produce are simply 
     innumerable. Price for the ordinary kind of grains up to 133 lines—
                     Zinc blocks at Re 1 per sq. inch. Copper blocks at Re 1-8 per sq. inch. Price for more artistic work on application to:
                            U. Ray, B.A., Artist. 38-1 Shibnarain Dass Lane, Calcutta. Technical Innovation

The studies on block-making technology led him to investigate the theoretical basis of the process camera and arrive at conclusions which standardises the hitherto empirical practices at process work.’ 

Experimentations began immediately and the firm's reputation was aided by its owners contribution to his chosen field. Starting in 1897, Upendrakishore wrote a number of articles in the best-known British printing journal of the time, Penrose Annual, based on his researches. Their titles, though technical, are self-explanatory: 'Focussing the Screen' (1897), 'The Theory of the Half-Tone Dot' (1898),'The Half-Tone Theory Graphically Explained' (1899), 'Automatic Adjustment of the Half-Tone Screen' (1901), 'Diffraction in Half-Tone' (1902–3), 'More About the Half-Tone Theory' (1903–4), 'The 60° Cross-Line Screen' (1905–6), 'Multiple Stops' (1911–12). Upendrakishore's papers about the diaphragm systems, his invention of the sixty-degree screen, his original methods of colour reproduction, his studies in diffraction and his contributions towards standardising half-tone camera work were all intimately connected with the progress of the photographic method of reproducing illustrations. While Siddhartha Ghosh in his essay on Sukumar Ray's Abol Tabol tells us that Upendrakishore patented a gadget known as the 'automatic screen adjustment indicator' which was sold as an optional accessory to the Penrose company's process camera, Andrew Robinson quotes a Penrose Annual issue in which its London editor explains a lack of articles by Mr. U. Ray as an outcome of ill health and further informs the printing trade that U. Ray had anticipated by some years the important screen just patented by someone in Britain' and that 'unable to prove his theory in Calcutta for lack of resources, Upendrakisore had appealed to his colleagues in Britain for help and one of them had plagiarised his ideas. By 1910, the firm was undertaking 'original designs in black and white in colours for tables, books, magazines and catalogue illustrations, show cards, letterheads etc.' Sukumar Ray Going Abroad

The growth of the firm coincided to Upendrakishore's son Sukumar Ray going abroad on the Guruprasanna Ghosh Scholarship at Presidency College, Calcutta in 1911 to study at the London County Council School of Photoengraving and Lithography. An integral part of the firm, Sukumar was to take over the running of the press when his father fell ill and his knowledge and technical expertise regarding latest printing techniques, half-tones and multiple stops picked up at LCC and later at the School of Technology at the University of Manchester (where he took the City and Guilds of London Institute Examination and was awarded the first prize) stood him in good stead. Letters exchanged between father and son during this period explore the possibility of producing and patenting a colour camera. His return to Calcutta saw the firm advertising, stressing, among other things, 'the unique results of twenty years' experience and research and two years' intimate study of European methods'. Around the same time, when Ramananda Chatterjee's Prabasi (sister to the Modern Review) became the first ever periodical in Bengali to feature a reproduction of a photograph on its cover purely for the sake of illustration, the block was turned out by U. Ray and Sons and the photograph taken by Sukumar Ray. 