an original mughaleazam poster through an online auction which was later signed by dilip kumar it rests beautifully framed at his residence mannatartistes captured raw emotions through their handpainted postershinesh jethwani of indian hippy has been working hard since 2009 to ensure that vintage posters of films are restored shares with the overall art market taking a hit even the poster market saw a slight slump in sales however with most of the businesses moving online we gradually started experiencing a surge in demand for posters not just from indian buyers but also from abroad this was during the first lockdown what is sad in all of this is that the generation of painters who created these pieces of art are passing away without anyone taking the baton from them studying this art form takes four to five years these painters were selftaught and they used rudimentary techniques which are not taught in art schools these painters captured the raw emotions of the films from their stills and created these visual treats which have become part of memorabilia today today in the name of a poster what you see is an airbrushed image of a star the rawness is missing 100 years down the line people may not have any reference to the art of creating these handpainted posters unless someone steps up and takes the baton forward earlier a poster was the only medium to introduce a film to the audiencefilmmaker ramesh sippy whose posters of seeta aur geeta and sholay are among those that are perpetually in demand believes that with evolving time and changing technology poster art will survive albeit in a different form he reasons posters played an important role in the journey of a film and they still do the digital era cannot be ignored those days there was a poster between a film and its audience but today theres a lot more in between back in the day it was so important to sit with the painters and create a visual communication using the characters of the film like sholays poster evolved from the time it was in the offing to the time it became a hit posters were the promise of a story that a film bore for its audience they were handmade then theyre technologically made now styles of pursuing an art can always change but posters continue to be art posters of cgrade films are in demand because they look funky and quirkymumbais chor bazaar even in its redevelopment phase continues to harbour shops that sell vintage posters business may not have been as good as it was once upon a time but the motivation to keep the shops running is admirable and visible in the way the stores have kept the posters in great shape haji abu who possesses over three million hindi and english vintage film posters arguably one of the largest collections in the country has a shop inside mumbais chor bazaar which dates back decades he