RIP Drew Struzan, Prolific Illustrator of Iconic Movie Posters

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. – Greg

That “Greg” is perhaps Greg Boas, who wrote and produced 2013’s Drew: The Man Behind the Poster, a feature length documentary on Struzan’s art, the trailer for which you can see below. That film interviewed Struzan and many other industry comrades such as directors Steven Spielberg, Guillermo del Toro and George Lucas, following Struzan’s career producing so many iconic movie posters of the 1970s-1990s in particular, including for franchises like Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Blade Runner, Back to the Future and more. His hand drawn craft represented the arguable pinnacle of a style that has now largely been replaced by digitally created movie posters.

Struzan began his career creating album covers, including the likes of Alice Cooper’s 1975 LP Welcome to My Nightmare, before eventually becoming the reigning master of the airbrushed one-sheet poster. The designs he created for the likes of 1977’s Star Wars: A New Hope would go on to live in industry lore and be found on a truly incalculable number of dorm walls in the decades to come. Struzan created iconic posters for numerous genres, sometimes in incredibly short periods of time–he reportedly created the poster for John Carpenter’s The Thing as an overnight rush job, which is a staggering achievement. He announced his initial retirement in 2008 and has worked in sporadic professional capacity since, creating comic cover art for various franchises and returning for more Star Wars installments. Few artists have ever cast quite so big a looming shadow over their particular corner of the arts world. Struzan will be missed by cinematic art fans everywhere.