Hand-Painted Adverts and Embellishments in India.
Almost immediately upon arrival in India you will notice the prevalence of wonderfully colourful and textural hand-painted signs and images. Here in the UK we have a few large murals made by artists but the work in India is different. It isn’t just there to be beautiful or to make a political statement — it’s there to advertise, and to provide information.
If you have a business premises, need an advert, or even perhaps want to jolly up the side of your house, you don’t head for your local sign shop and have an image printed onto plastic or vinyl. Instead, you pay a visit to your local signboard painter who will paint you something completely by hand.
Why is this style of imagery so enduring? Indian people do seem to appreciate the work of their artisans. Items that could often have been built plainly and more austere have instead been embellished with small and unnecessary flourishes. It is rare to see even a humble TukTuk without a little scroll of flowers painted onto the bright green canopy for no purpose other than to make it look a little bit nicer. On a more practical note, the heavy paints they use are also perfectly suited to making artworks onto the huge variety of bricks, plaster and metals that are used as substrates.
The level of skill these artists have is simply amazing. When new, the vibrancy of their brightly coloured paints and contrasting colours really catch your eye. Decades later, I think the same weather-worn signs actually look more beautiful in their own way. The patina of pollutants and the crumbling of the surfaces they were painted onto only add to their appeal. There is also something quite amusing seeing modern information, such as website addresses and WhatsApp logos, painstakingly brushed by hand onto a crumbling brick wall.
I have been pleased to see that the preference of hand-painted signs over mechanically or digitally printed ones is still very much evident. Since my first visit to India in 2018 this is one part of Indian culture that doesn’t seem to have been modernised, yet. This huge sign for the Ganpati Guesthouse in Varanasi, below, was being painted this year (2026) and when I called up to the painter to tell him that I thought his work was fabulous he simply smiled and replied ‘I have a great job’.
In this fashion, I am fond of the old and faded “ghost signs” in Britain: faded layers of times past.
They’re not just communication or decoration—they’re a street-level visual medium in their own right. So beautiful.