RIP Movie Poster Legend Drew Struzan

Tributes To A True Movie Poster Master

Earlier today, we received the very sad news that movie poster legend Drew Struzan just passed away today at the age of 78 after an illness over the past couple of years. Here’s a few tributes from his contemporaries and his family first…

DREW WAS A FORCE OF NATURE.

Like a whirlwind, He could not be stopped nor tamed nor manipulated.

His power never waned.

The disease, this particular disease, took the wind out of him. He could no longer speak his language out loud. We respected the tenacity, his ability to hold on to the fire within that continued to rage. Daily he tended the flame reviewing the paintings of those he long admired. Van Gogh. Gauguin. Cézanne. The Impressionists who fought diligently against the status quo.

Those who asked the viewer to see things differently.

To embrace the illusions of life … all the best parts fractured into meaningful bits of beauty.

He looked through rose-colored glasses so he could impart to us a better version of life. That’s what drew people to him. His kindness. His hope. His love of beautiful things.

It was our honor to nurture that glow.

Please take a moment to reflect on what he brought to you. Life should be full of love and beauty.

– The Struzan Family

Here’s George Lucas on artist Drew Struzan’s passing:

“Drew was an artist of the highest order. His illustrations fully captured the excitement, tone and spirit of each of my films his artwork represented. His creativity, through a single illustrated image, opened up a world full of life in vivid color…even at a glance. I was lucky to have worked with him time and time again”

Here’s what Steven Spielberg had to say about his passing:

“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.” — Steven Spielberg

Here’s a brief tribute from Oscar winning director Guillermo del Toro

The world lost a genial man, a genius communicator and a supreme artist. I lost a friend – beloved Drew.

And here’s the tribute from New York’s Society Of Illustrators

From his gallery friends:

Here’s a few quotes from the Drew Struzan interview that Tripwire’s editor-in-chief Joel Meadows conducted back in summer 2010 for our Annual of that year:

TRIPWIRE: What do you think makes a good film poster?

DREW STRUZAN: Well, I think commercially and financially it’s one that gets people interested in the product. The thing about movie posters is that it’s very different from other products. They only have one weekend to sell the idea to come and see what we’ve done. There’s other things like the trailers that keep people interested. But what the poster is supposed to be for initially is to excite people about the possibilities of the movie.

TRIPWIRE: the Indiana Jones posters had a very classic look and they were very distinctive. You could tell that it was your work. Was that something you strove for from the beginning of working as a poster artist and as an illustrator? That aficionados would see your work and go ‘That’s a Drew Struzan’?

DS: No that didn’t happen (laughs). I was all over the place using different styles and techniques. I didn’t have one thing that I was selling. The Indy thing only became the recognisable style because I kept doing the same thing for Indy as that’s what they liked and they wanted. So over time, my look and my take on Indy became identifiable with me. As I remember it, it wasn’t an Indy legitimate thing unless I did it. I had no foresight about this stuff. It happened later. People will always see it that way and go, ‘Oh he had this great design and this great purpose.’ My purpose was very simple: I wanted to make art and I wanted to make a living. It all happened around me.

Drew Struzan was the last of the classic movie poster artists and with the loss of fellow legendary movie poster artist Robert McGinnis, it’s truly the end of an era. His legacy is huge, having created posters for many of the most iconic movies of the 1980s and 1990s.

Tripwire would like to offer our sincere condolences to his wife, Drew, and his friends and family. Here’s a gallery of 10 of his classic movie posters