Introduction
The paintbrush always held sway in film publicity material. From poster designs, synopses booklets to credit rolls, lithographic prints, vividly coloured portraits of stars, stylised lettering, fashionable typography, ornate borders and graphic art dominated print over text. Since film was a relatively new medium for masses of unlettered Indians, the image, and principally the painted image before photography took over in the 80s, constituted a homogenised language for advertisements to non-reading publics. Studios relied on artists to create a readable image of the storyline that could stimulate interest. B M Gupta, S Rehman, Akhtar Sheikh, Diwarkar Karkare, S M Pandit, Pandit Ramkumar Sharma, C Mohan, Diwakar Karkare, D R Bhosle Gohar and M F Husain parade in a long line of artists who designed for the talkies. These original designs were multiplied into thousands of lithographic prints.
