GURU

Original British 30 inch x 40 inch Quad Poster for the 1969 James Ivory Drama THE GURU, written for the screen by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala & James Ivory and starring Michael York, Rita Tushingham, Utpal Dutt, Madhur Jaffrey, Barry Foster, Aparna Sen, Zohra Sehgal and Saeed Jaffrey.

The poster art is by Peter Strausfeld. Strausfeld was interned in the Isle of Man at the Onchan Internment Camp during the War where he met the Austrian producer George Hoellering. In 1947 Hoellering opened the Academy Cinema on Oxford Street and invited Strausfeld to produce some posters for the cinema which he did in wood and lino-cuts till his death in 1980.

English pop singer York goes to India to learn the sitar and falls for the Indian way of life.

The Academy Cinema, built in 1913, was saved from conversion to a shopping arcade in 1928 by Elsie Cohen of the original Film Society, who proceeded to run it as an arthouse which is how it was ran till it’s closure in 1986.

The posters became a London landmark, in fact very few were used outside of London, resulting in very small print runs of 3-500.

Printed by Ward & Foxlow

The poster is in fine unfolded (rolled) condition