Cine-Pop!

Bollywood Photo Culture
 

Amassed from the streets of Bombay, this growing array of images from the collection of Rahaab Allana highlights movie stills and associated memorabilia that advertised and popularised actors and epic sequences from the original film. Dated largely between the 1950s and 80s, this selection of handmade photographs, including tabloid images, comprises an essential subculture of photography that had mass appeal, many of which were transformed into large film posters, banners and hoardings.

This exhibition, revived on the 195th birth commemoration of photography as a medium was showcased during the centenary of Indian cinema in 2013 with Art Heritage. It is divided into different tropes and styles manifested in a later period of Hindi cinema, an era which saw the rise of a global audience for Bollywood. Affection, Action, Drama, Caricature and Villainy present some of the recurring ‘moments’ that were captured through film photography. These stills, which also travelled as lobby cards and show cards that were pinned up in foyers of cinema theatres, present some of the most unacknowledged forms in the history of the medium. This exhibition features photographs from studios such as Studio Nataraj, Himalaya Talkie Distributors and Pravinchandra G. Javeri, most of which are in Bombay (present day Mumbai). They present prominent actors such as Madhubala, Ashok Kumar, Nargis, Dev Anand, Pran, Mumtaz, Mehboob, Johnny Walker, Om Prakash, Randhir Kapoor, Dharmendra, Helen and Rekha among several others.
The exhibition features photographs from studios such as Studio Nataraj, Himalaya Talkie Distributors and Pravinchandra G. Javeri, most of which are in Bombay (present day Mumbai).