Related Posts
The Hindi film industry is known as Bollywood all over the world. India holds the record for making the most number of films in the world. According to the Censor Board, every year 1500 to 2000 films are made in India in more than 20 languages. Indian cinema began in 1913 when India’s first silent film ‘Raja Harishchandra’ was made. This film was based on the play ‘Harishchandra’ by the famous writer Bharatendu Harishchandra. This film was made by the great filmmaker Dadasaheb Phalke. The foundation of the Indian film industry was laid due to the efforts of Phalke. In the early days of the Hindi film industry, technology was not so developed, at that time film posters were made by hand by painters. Today is such a time when posters are polished with big and good techniques and made with editing software. It is said that the basis of the success of a film depends to a large extent on its poster. The first impression of any film is its poster, so a lot of hard work was done in the making of these film posters. This was the reason that those posters were so different that they were kept simple.
In the modern and digital age, the art of making film posters by hand is now vanishing. To introduce this art to the present generation and save it from extinction, a senior painter from Indore, Madhya Pradesh, Mr. Purshottam Solanki started the work of making posters of 50-year-old films. Mr. Solanki started this work on 1 January 2019, and by 15 December 2023, he made posters of 100 films. By creating such a large number of film posters on canvas, senior painter Mr. Purshottam Solanki set a new world record which was recorded in the Golden Book of World Records with the title of ” Largest Feat of Recreating Old Hindi Film Posters on Canvas “. Mr. Solanki revived the memories of many hit films after 1913 by making posters of those films on a 30’x40′ canvas.
71-year-old painter Mr. Purushottam Solanki says that today’s young generation hardly knows how film posters were made in the olden days and what colours were used in them. He started poster making from Jaipur in 1969. He worked there for 12 years, during which he made posters of hit films like ‘Mera Naam Joker, Jugnu, Razia Sultan, Gopi, Yaadon Ki Baaraat’. He also made a 42-foot cutout of the film Mera Naam Joker in Palo Victory Theatre, Jaipur, which was the largest cutout of that time. Shri Solanki says that at that time, artists were paid at the rate of one and a half rupees per square foot. 50 years ago, posters were made with powder colour. Linseed oil is mixed in powder colour, due to which it does not spoil for 100 years and neither does it crack even when folded.
