Baburao Painter

Baburao Painter was born on 3rd June 1890. He was a director, painter and a sculptor. He taught himself to how to paint and hence the name Painter.Baburao studied painting and sculpting in an art school. He and his cousin Anandrao Painter, between the years 1910 and 1916 were the most successful painters of stage backgrounds in Western part of India.

They did several famous decorations for Sangeet Natak groups and also for Gujarati and Parsi theatres. They became huge movie buffs following the 1913silent classic Raja Harishchand. Baburao and his cousin Anandarao bought a movie projector and went on to understanding moviemaking and studying the art and concepts of movies.

During the time they both were in the process of understanding moviemaking and how to assemble the cameras, Anandrao tragically passed away, which then forced Baburao to work alone. After the sad demise of his borhter, Baburao still hadn’t lost any interest in movies, and then he founded the Maharashtra Film Company in 1919.

He got financial help to start this venture by a fellow movie admirer and friend Tanibai Kagolkar. Initially when he started this film company, it didn’t go down well in Kolhapur, his hometown. As Kolhapur was a very conservative town and movie making business was looked down upon by the people. In 1920, Baburao released his first feature film called Sairandri.

The movie was heavily censored due to it’s many graphic scenes of violence, but through this movie, Baburao had cemented his position as a great movie maker. The movie didn’t go well with the local audience but was critically acclaimed and went on to become a huge success. Following the success of his first movie, Baburao felt that he would take on even more challenging concepts. Baburao started using multi-dimensional spaces in his movies and was one of the first-ever to do so. Baburao started writing his own scripts and screenplays. He was also the first-ever Indian director to use the stenographic method.

Baburao soon became one of the most prominent figures in the film industry, a true pioneer who had adopted and more so invented a lot of new methods that are still used in today’s movies. He went on to direct more than 30 movies, Some of the most famous ones being Sati Padmini, Maya Bazar, Rana Hamir and Gaj Gauri. Baburao passed away aged just 63 in his hometown of Kolhapur.