The Art of Movie Posters

Raja Ravi Varma was the first Indian painter to set up a lithographic press in 1890 (at Malodi near Lonavala) to mass produce and make inexpensive copies of his paintings.

Even Dadasaheb Phalke, the Father of Indian Cinema, had flirted with this process for a brief period from 1906 to 1910, at first setting up the Phalke Engraving and Printing Works at Lonavala (1906-1908) which worked majorly for the Ravi Varma Press and then the Laxmi Art Printers at Dadar in Mumbai (1908-1910), giving up the business to make films.

There is no record of how many Indian film companies used film posters as a marketing tool for their films but one among them was undoubtedly Baburao Painter, the owner of the Maharashtra Film Company and guru to many a silent and early talkie filmmaker including V. Shantaram. A painter of great renown he was all too familiar with the potential of the lithographic process.

The poster for his 1924 film Kalyan Khajina is the oldest available Indian film poster though experts like Rajesh Devraj (The Art of Bollywood) agree to its vintage, but place the date at 1927 because the poster carries the name of Dhondiram Gopal Vankudre (a relative of Shantaram’s father Rajaram Vankudre) who became the world-rights controller of the film in the late 1920s.

Dixit worked at Prabhat from 1934 to 1939, during the course of which he designed the poster publicity of Shantaram’s first great triumphs: Amar Jyoti (1936), Duniya Na Mane/Kunku (1937) and Aadmi/Manoos (1939).

Always on the alert for new talent to join his team of creative artistes, Shantaram spotted S M Pandit (1916-1993), a painter of mythological portraits in the Ravi Varma tradition, who had made a name for himself as a painter and designer of the Film India covers from 1938. Shantaram invited him to create the Shakuntala look for Jayashree and used the paintings as showcards.

In the studio Pandit collaborated with another young artist from Goa, Raghubir Mulgaonkar (1922–76) who continued to gratefully acknowledge the immense influence that Pandit had in developing his oeuvre. Mulgaonkar also designed several posters for Rajkamal.

Gopalrao Kamble (1917-2002), another graduate of the J J School of Arts, worked for several top film companies in Bombay. He came to Prabhat Film Company with a formidable reputation. Kamble was then invited by V. Shantaram to join his team at the newly formed Rajkamal Kalamandir.

Kamble worked at Rajkamal Kalamandir all through the 1940s and 1950s and came up with several innovative ideas to capture the attention of the viewing public. He created a gigantic poster (66x12.5 feet) outside Swastik theatre at Lamington Road, Bombay for Rajkamal's first offering Shakuntala (1943). It is said he mooted the idea of recreating Sage Kanwa’s ashram in the theatre lobby.

Poster Design by Gopalrao Kamble for the film Subah Ka Tara.

The last of the Rajkamal poster designers was Vilas Sutar, better known by his trade name of S.Vilas. A graduate of the J.J. School of Arts (1958) he began to work as an illustrator with G. Kamble who was then designing the posters for the historical Mughal-e-Azam (1960-1963). He was hired by V. Shantaram to design the posters for Stree (1963).

Vilas stayed with Rajkamal till the very last film V. Shantaram directed: Jhanjhar (1987). In between he worked on films like Sehra (1963), Geet Gaya Patharone (1964), Pinjara (1973), Chandanachi Choli, etc.

In an article Vilas reminisced, “Shantaram would never get angry whenever we made a mistake. On the contrary he would say: Don’t worry about mistakes. It is my loss. But learn from them and move ahead. Do something innovative. This would encourage us to experiment.”

Here is S. Vilas standing against the backdrop of a huge poster he had painted for Chandanachi Choli: Ang Ang Jaali at the release of the film in 1975 at Plaza.