Every picture has a thousand-word backstory, in the new exhibition at Jehangir Nicholson Art Foundation, CSMVS, in Mumbai. A Cinematic Imagination (on till April 17) brings to light the photographic cache of Josef Wirsching, a Munichwallah who made India his home. As the principal cinematographer at Bombay Talkies, the legendary studio co-founded by Himansu Rai and Devika Rani, Wirsching was behind the camera for Jawani ki Hawa (1935); Achhut Kanya (1936) and Jeevan Naiya (1936); Izzat, Savitri, and Jeevan Prabhat (1937); and Nirmala and Vachan (1938), among others. As co-curator Debashree Mukherjee, associate professor at Columbia University, tells STIR, “Almost 95 per cent of films made in India before Independence are considered lost. So, coming across a photographic archive like this is just astounding. From these photographs, we get so much information about the organisation of labour on a set, the sophisticated technologies, the lighting set-ups.” Georg and Josef, Wirsching’s grandsons, who are the custodians of the archive today, are presenting the show with the Alkazi Foundation, with Rahaab Allana as co-curator.

With 135 black and white photographs, the exhibition opens with the team from Light of Asia (also known as Prem Sanyas) in 1925, an Indo-German co-production, where Wirsching originally met Rai and Rani. An epic on the life of Gautam Buddha, with Rai playing the lead, Light of Asia “tapped into the neo-Buddhist revival in 1920s Germany, evidenced in the works of Thomas Mann [German novelist], Bertolt Brecht [playwright], and Herman Hesse [German-Swiss poet],” the extremely detailed captions and show notes tell us. “All these guys only knew German,” says Georg. “So, Bertl Schultes, the production manager, had to be the translator. He would translate the German into English for Himansu, who would translate the English into Hindi for the rest of the cast and crew.” Shot on a budget of one lakh rupees in Jaipur with an all-Indian cast, “Light of Asia was a landmark collaboration,” says Georg. “Everybody was suffering from heat stroke, but my grandad was shooting on his Askania camera all day in his sola topi and khaki shorts.”

When Bombay Talkies was launched in the early 1930s, Wirsching joined them full-time. With roots in German expressionism, he frequently framed characters through "arches, doorways and windows; favoured eccentric camera angles; and masterfully moulded light to create shadows and pools of darkness,” according to the curators. The behind-the-scenes stills, which make up a large part of the exhibition, show how plywood and paint were used to create the fanciful worlds of Hindi cinema.

A significant section is devoted to Rani, the first leading lady of the Indian screen. “Devika Rani was Bollywood's original diva,” says Josef. A grand-niece of Rabindranath Tagore, tutored in European boarding schools, Rani met and married Rai, 16 years her senior, in the 1920s. While sporting sleeveless blouses, Bauhaus-inspired sari designs and finger-waved hair on screen, she was rarely seen without impeccable makeup and a cigarette off it. “A lot of the time, Himansu got the funding for his movies because some of the rich cats in Bombay just wanted to have dinner with her,” says Josef. An iconic scene from Jawani ki Hawa, of Rani and co-actor Najam-ul-Hussain standing in a train passage, has been blown up for the show. The photo hints at the controversy that overtook Bombay Talkies at the time when the duo eloped together to Calcutta (now Kolkata). "Himansu was completely heartbroken,” says Georg. They convinced Rani to return, “but Himansu told Najam-ul in no uncertain terms, 'You cannot set foot in Bombay ever again.' That is how Ashok Kumar was forced to take on the role of the hero in Bombay Talkies.” 

While an arch and a pillar in Malad is all that remains of the illustrious studio today, the photographs offer a wider angle of the people behind it. They are a glimpse at what propelled these men and women to abandon all sense and logic to launch a film industry in pre-Independence India. As Allana tells STIR, "This was a group of magic lanternists, who wanted to create memories out of light and shadows.”

'A Cinematic Imagination' is on view at the Jehangir Nicholson Art Foundation, Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya, from March 1–April 17, 2024.