Legendary Bollywood film poster artist Diwakar Karkare passed away on 5 January. "With great sadness we announce the loss of our beloved father Diwakar Karkare of Studio Diwakar last night at 9:20 pm," he son Umesh wrote in a statement on Twitter.
Having studied at the JJ School of Art in Mumbai, Karkare went on to create some of the most iconic Indian film posters between the 1960s and 1980s. Notably, he was responsible for bringing Amitabh Bachchan's 'angry young man' alive on posters for films such as Deewar, Sholay and Amar Akbar Anthony through his signature technique of overpainting with a knife. His work can also be seen in posters for Bimal Roy's Benazir and Manmohan Desai directorial Mard. The artist counted top Bollywood directors such as Yash Chopra and Raj Kapoor among his clients and was once the highest paid designer in the film industry, commanding as much as Rs 50,000 for his work in his heyday.
After an illustrious career, Diwakar Karkare retired when cut-and-paste became popular in the 1980. "There was no creativity in it," he told film critic Anupama Chopra in a 2010 interview. He left the film industry for good and settled in Pune. He told Chopra that he had made peace with cutting ties with Bollywood. "If you are not there (Bollywood), you are forgotten. I believe that I helped to establish Yash Chopra but when they had a function to celebrate the 25th anniversary of Yash Raj Films, they didn't even invite me. So I don't regret losing touch," he told Chopra.
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