At first, you might not know the name Drew Struzan, but you know his work. His work on movie posters is legendary, as you can see from the gallery below.
Struzan’s death, at 78, was announced on his Instagram account:
“It is with a heavy heart that I must tell you that Drew Struzan has moved on from this world as of yesterday, October 13th. I feel it is important that you all know how many times he expressed to me the joy he felt knowing how much you appreciated his art.”
The list of movies he created classic movie posters for includes Star Wars, Back to the Future, Blade Runner, and Indiana Jones.
Struzan was born in Oregon City and enrolled at the Art Centre College of Design in Pasadena. Initially made money selling small commissions to pay for his tuition. Eventually, he would design album covers for The Beach Boys, Bee Gees, and Earth, Wind and Fire.
He also illustrated Alice Cooper’s album cover Welcome to My Nightmare, charging about $150 – 250 per drawing. Alter, he would move on to movie posters, like Empire of the Ants and Squirm.
Struzan was approached by artist Charles White III, who had been hired by 20th Century Fox, to create a poster for the re-release of Star Wars in 1978. White painted the mechanical details, while Struzan painted the human characters in oils.
From there on, pretty much every major movie had Struazan’s artwork on it, from Indiana Jones, The Goonies, The Muppet Movie, Big Trouble in Little China, How to Train Your Dragon, The Dark Tower and the Disney Star Wars Trilogy.
Frequent collaborator, Steve Spielberg, said of Struzan:
“Drew made event art. His posters made many of our movies into destinations…and the memory of those movies and the age we were when we saw them always comes flashing back just by glancing at his iconic photorealistic imagery. In his own invented style, nobody drew like Drew.”
What was your favourite of his posters?
RIP Drew Struzan at age 78.
